OAKLAND, Calif. (KGO) — The elevator has been out-of-service for more than a month at a six-story apartment building near Lake Merritt in Oakland. Some residents feel trapped, especially the elderly in wheelchairs living on the higher floors. They’ve been unable to get answers from the company that owns the building, so the residents contacted the I-Team’s Dan Noyes, and now, things appear to be moving.
We see these situations again and again. A serious problem persists, but then we start making phone calls and somehow, the wheels start rolling.
“I’m 80 and I’m feeling it,” Richard Johnson said. “Meaning that I’ve got a number of issues going on.”
Eighty-year-old Richard Johnson says he can’t walk as well as he used to. “The point is I don’t have good control of my balance and all that stuff. I can fall,” he said.
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He still wears the “fall risk” bracelet from his last hospital visit. Now, Johnson tells us he feels trapped in his apartment, because the building’s passenger elevator has been out of service for more than a month – the freight elevator, even longer.
Dan Noyes: “What’s it like having that elevator out? Does it affect your life?”
Richard Johnson: “It affects my life every day. I don’t enjoy walking up and down the stairs four flights.”
Johnson tells me some of his neighbors in wheelchairs haven’t been able to leave their apartment for the five weeks that the elevator has been broken.
This mother has to lug her baby, the laundry, and cart to the basement to the washing machine or outside to run errands.
Noyes: “How’s it possible to get all this down the stairs?”
Crystal Crawford, tenant: “I had to carry it right now.”
Noyes: “With her in it?”
Crawford: “Yeah. (laughs)”
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“It’s never been reliable in the five years I’ve lived here,” tenant Phil Johnson said. “We’ve had it where it’s been down for three months or longer. It’s, I’ve been trapped in it three times myself.”
Johnson lives on the fifth floor. In April, the personal injury attorney was heading to court, to pick the jury for his first big case.
“And I got stuck between the second and third floor and I start thinking, ‘Oh my God, what am I gonna do?'”
Public records show that the Oakland Fire Department has had to rescue tenants from stuck elevators at the building at least 15 times in the past year – six from the month of April alone.
Johnson decided to use his skills as a lawyer to help the tenants. “And so, the whole thing of what I like to do professionally is, fight the bastards of the world that take money from everyday people and don’t give it back, you know, in a fair exchange. So, this totally animates me.”
Johnson started posting fliers instructing tenants how to file complaints asking for rent back, and he contacted the I-Team through our website.
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Tenant Kit Vaq said, “I think that anybody would just be outraged at what’s going on here.”
We started investigating by speaking with the building’s tenants.
“It kind of really sucks for me because I have a bad knee and it’s hard to get downstairs,” tenant April Dawn said. “And I have a tricycle, and I can’t get it down the stairs.”
Then, we went to the on-site manager’s office. California Law says an apartment building with 16 or more units has to have a manager living at the property. But, the residents tell us they haven’t seen anyone there for months. We left messages at every phone number posted for the apartment manager and staff, wrote to every email address, and haven’t heard back. We called and emailed Mosser Companies’ CEO, Neveo Mosser, texted his personal cell phone, spoke with his former PR person, but no response. He has talked about the company mission in various podcasts and trade programs. Mosser told the Institutional Real Estate, Inc. webinar, “We’re not just buying property, we are becoming stewards and members of a community.”
Then, we contacted the Oakland Councilmember for District 3, Carroll Fife. She met us at the building. Fife said, “Mosser is one of the largest housing providers in Northern California. There’s no excuse. So, I’m going to reach out to them directly outside of what we’re doing with the city attorney to find out what exactly is the problem here, so they can fix it for the tenants.”
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Fife points to Oakland’s “Elevator Maintenance in Residential Buildings Ordinance” that took effect in December. It mandates:
- Repairs completed within 24 hours
- If not, temporary housing for tenants up to $250/night
- Damages up to $1,000/day that an elevator is out of service
- Up to $2,500/day for failing to relocate a person whose access has been restricted
Noyes: “So, what’s next?”
Carroll Fife: “What’s next is I’m talking to our city attorney about what we can do to support this building, to make sure that residents have access to their elevator.”
City Attorney Ryan Richardson declined an interview, but his office released a statement saying he’s “aware of these concerning reports and is actively investigating this issue.”
After all our phone calls, texts, and emails to the company, Mosser sent an email to the tenants saying the elevator would be fixed by this past weekend. But it didn’t happen. Then, they sent another email to say it would be fixed sometime this week. We’ll keep you up to date on all this, the status of the elevator and possible action by the city attorney.
Take a look at more stories by the ABC7 News I-Team.
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