HOUSTON – People who live at a Northside apartment complex came to us desperate for help after complaining about spending days without electricity and weeks without hot water.
They fear being wrongfully evicted so we’re not going to identify them, but they say these are just a few issues at The Palms on Rolling Creek complex, and the list goes on and on.
“This is the light that I use to maneuver through here,” said an 80-year-old woman holding a lantern. “My refrigerator, all of this is gone now. It’s all trash. We’ve been without electricity for three days.”
Making matters worse, the insulin she needs to survive also requires refrigeration.
“There’s the insulin just sitting right here. And it’s going to go bad just sitting on ice. That’s not going to last. There’s the food I’m not even sure that’s going to be any good,” she said.
She is one of countless neighbors with a horror story to tell.
Just getting to the much-needed coolers or anywhere else inside the apartments has become its own task.
“So navigating around in the dark to the bathroom and stuff, you’re bumping into stuff. It’s not safe,” another neighbor said.
There’s also no hot water. Aside from a sign apologizing for the inconveniences and promising they’re working to fix the boiler they say they’ve gotten no response.
“They haven’t even come to check on us,” the neighbor said.
We’re told other issues include pest infestations, and mold. Back in January, Harris County Attorney, Christian Menefee filed a lawsuit against property owner Globix Palms Rolling LLC for ongoing raw sewerage issues.
As far as the electricity is concerned, people living there say that issue began on Saturday when an electricity pole fell and management told them they were forced to cut the power off, but nothing has changed since then.
A statement from CenterPoint reads “Our operations team has investigated this outage and determined the issue to be with customer-owned equipment.”
After no one answered the leasing door office, we called and got an answer.
“We are working on it, it will be done tomorrow,” the representative said.
Any tenant deprived of their utilities is entitled to file a petition for Writ of Restoration of Utilities with their local justice of the peace.
The Justice of the Peace for the Palms at Rolling Creek is in Precinct 4. It’s located at 6831 Cypresswood Dr. Spring, Tx 77379.
The number is 713-274-6550
Since there are no specific online forms to file the Writ of Restoration of Utilities, tenants must call for more information, or go to the office in person.