- 注册
- 2002-10-07
- 消息
- 402,183
- 荣誉分数
- 76
- 声望点数
- 0
A single mother says she was forced out of her Ottawa Community Housing unit during the holidays after frozen pipes caused raw sewage to back up, flooding her kitchen with putrid, dark-coloured water.
Making matters worse, the deep freeze that has gripped the National Capital Region caused the main water pipe to Lucienne Makolo’s east-end townhouse to freeze Friday night, leaving hers and four other units without running water.
Taps were flowing again in three of homes by early the next morning, but Makolo and her neighbour, Maria Cagina, have been without running water since Saturday morning.
Not a great start to the new year, says the 30-year-old, who moved into her two-bedroom unit on Provender Avenue three years ago after leaving an abusive relationship and spending some time in an emergency shelter with her infant son.
“This is how I rang in 2018,” she said.
The ordeal began last week after Makolo flushed the toilet and soon heard the sound of water leaking somewhere. The tub and toilet in an upstairs bathroom filled up with dark-coloured water. Both have since drained, but a brown stain circling the tub reveals how high the water climbed.
Meanwhile, water ran down the walls and poured out of her kitchen cupboards, showering the microwave, toaster oven and dish rack with raw sewage. The floor was so drenched that some of the grey tiles have since begun to lift.
Outside, veins of ice cling to the exterior brick wall below Makolo’s unit and there’s a mound of yellowy-brown ice several inches thick on her stoop.
Lucienne Makolo stands outside her Ottawa home.
Her three-year-old son, Lexington, is staying with his godfather, while Makolo has been couch-surfing or spending time in her apartment while the plumbers work, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, to get the water running again.
A cleaning crew was dispatched Friday, she said, but promptly turned around when they learned there was no running water.
They gave Makolo some garbage bags and a bottle of Spray Nine cleaner. “They were like, ‘This is the best we can do,'” she said.
Ottawa Community Housing staff delivered bottled water over the weekend, but Makolo said she doesn’t want to prepare food in a kitchen still reeking of sewage.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
This isn’t the first time her pipes have frozen, Makolo said. Plumbers paid her a visit last winter and the one before that. She said they blame poor insulation around the pipes. “This is a recurring issue,” she said.
Lucienne Makolo sits in her bathroom.
Freezing pipes are an “unfortunate situation” that can happen during extreme cold weather, said OCH head Stéphane Giguère, noting the housing provider owns more than 15,000 homes.
But OCH said the sewage blockage was partly caused by “certain non-recommended items being flushed down the toilet” — a statement Makolo disputes, saying the plumber on-site told her that wasn’t the problem.
Makolo said she’s careful not to flush baby wipes or other things down the toilet.
Giguère credited staff and contractors for responding to the complaints about frozen pipes quickly, despite the cold weather and holidays.
Contractors were still on-site Tuesday afternoon and a cleaning crew was on standby.
“I just want to make sure that the tenant has the proper support because that’s the last thing we want as an organization — that the tenant feels they are alone and feels they have no support,” Giguère said.
Makolo, who starts a new job next week as a catering chef, said the experience has left her feeling like she’s homeless all over again.
“I’m exhausted,” she said, as she scanned the disarray of a kitchen and living room turned upside down by the episode. She said she’d like to find a new place for her and Lexington to live, but that it will be hard and that she hasn’t got the cash to pay for movers.
“I don’t want to stay here.”
mpearson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
Making matters worse, the deep freeze that has gripped the National Capital Region caused the main water pipe to Lucienne Makolo’s east-end townhouse to freeze Friday night, leaving hers and four other units without running water.
Taps were flowing again in three of homes by early the next morning, but Makolo and her neighbour, Maria Cagina, have been without running water since Saturday morning.
Not a great start to the new year, says the 30-year-old, who moved into her two-bedroom unit on Provender Avenue three years ago after leaving an abusive relationship and spending some time in an emergency shelter with her infant son.
“This is how I rang in 2018,” she said.
The ordeal began last week after Makolo flushed the toilet and soon heard the sound of water leaking somewhere. The tub and toilet in an upstairs bathroom filled up with dark-coloured water. Both have since drained, but a brown stain circling the tub reveals how high the water climbed.
Meanwhile, water ran down the walls and poured out of her kitchen cupboards, showering the microwave, toaster oven and dish rack with raw sewage. The floor was so drenched that some of the grey tiles have since begun to lift.
Outside, veins of ice cling to the exterior brick wall below Makolo’s unit and there’s a mound of yellowy-brown ice several inches thick on her stoop.
Lucienne Makolo stands outside her Ottawa home.
Her three-year-old son, Lexington, is staying with his godfather, while Makolo has been couch-surfing or spending time in her apartment while the plumbers work, sometimes into the wee hours of the morning, to get the water running again.
A cleaning crew was dispatched Friday, she said, but promptly turned around when they learned there was no running water.
They gave Makolo some garbage bags and a bottle of Spray Nine cleaner. “They were like, ‘This is the best we can do,'” she said.
Ottawa Community Housing staff delivered bottled water over the weekend, but Makolo said she doesn’t want to prepare food in a kitchen still reeking of sewage.
“It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” she said.
This isn’t the first time her pipes have frozen, Makolo said. Plumbers paid her a visit last winter and the one before that. She said they blame poor insulation around the pipes. “This is a recurring issue,” she said.
Lucienne Makolo sits in her bathroom.
Freezing pipes are an “unfortunate situation” that can happen during extreme cold weather, said OCH head Stéphane Giguère, noting the housing provider owns more than 15,000 homes.
But OCH said the sewage blockage was partly caused by “certain non-recommended items being flushed down the toilet” — a statement Makolo disputes, saying the plumber on-site told her that wasn’t the problem.
Makolo said she’s careful not to flush baby wipes or other things down the toilet.
Giguère credited staff and contractors for responding to the complaints about frozen pipes quickly, despite the cold weather and holidays.
Contractors were still on-site Tuesday afternoon and a cleaning crew was on standby.
“I just want to make sure that the tenant has the proper support because that’s the last thing we want as an organization — that the tenant feels they are alone and feels they have no support,” Giguère said.
Makolo, who starts a new job next week as a catering chef, said the experience has left her feeling like she’s homeless all over again.
“I’m exhausted,” she said, as she scanned the disarray of a kitchen and living room turned upside down by the episode. She said she’d like to find a new place for her and Lexington to live, but that it will be hard and that she hasn’t got the cash to pay for movers.
“I don’t want to stay here.”
mpearson@postmedia.com
twitter.com/mpearson78
查看原文...
