ST. LOUIS – A St. Louis Housing Authority tenant contacted our You Paid For It team to get relief at their apartment following the recent heat wave.
Jamie Hassan tells FOX 2 that temperatures in her apartment on South 14th Street shot into the upper 80s after her central air conditioner went out. Despite Hassan’s pleas, the building owners have seemingly dragged their feet to fix the AC.
Taxpayers pay $1,000 a month for the unit for Hassan and her two children. Your tax dollars are covering air conditioning for an apartment without it.
“AC units have not been working since three years now,” Hassan said. “These are central air units and each time I contact my property manager, she saying that we’re waiting on a bid, but obviously there’s plenty of contractors out here, but this has been extremely too long to be living in these conditions.”
Hassan has old window units that don’t cool the entire apartment.
“My feeling is I’m stressed out and I really… it’s just hard living in this condition,” she said. “I just really want to get out of here, cause it doesn’t seem like anything is going to be done.”
Outside the apartment are a row of central air conditioning units that don’t work.
That’s not all the trouble. Inside the apartment, the ceiling of one of the bedrooms collapsed while she and her daughter were watching TV. Hassan said she called apartment managers time and again, with no luck getting action.
FOX 2 contacted the St. Louis Housing Authority, which then reached out to building owners. Apartment management immediately replaced the old air conditioner window units with new ones. Workers came and began repairs on the ceiling.
Hassan said it’s a step in the right direction, but there’s still much to be done so that she can stay cool when the heat soars.
“Yes, my main concern is the central air, because it’s a central air unit that I live in, and I should not have air conditioners in my window,” she said.