Some tenants at the Prudenville Lakeview Trailer Park said they had been out of water for weeks.
“It’s hard to live like this when you’ve paid the bills and you don’t have money, and it’s crazy to try,” said renter Christine Willey.
Willie said she drank low pressure water on day 15.
“I boil water to wash dishes and do things, and I also use a sponge to give myself a bath, and I’ll go to my friends to bathe,” she said. “You can’t do anything, you can’t do anything. You boil water, do your best can.”
Just down the road, renter Rachel DiMaria had no water at all.
“I can’t do laundry, my kids can’t bathe, they can’t flush the toilet,” she said. “This is the fourth time in two months that we haven’t had water.”
DiMaria said she called and left a message for property management company Multi-Family Innovations, which took over the management role in early March.
“Management would call the maintenance guy, get the maintenance guy to call us, let him call him,” Di Maria said. “The owner refuses to fix anything. It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s probably the smallest thing, they won’t fix it, they won’t communicate with you at all.”
Willie said she called everyone she could think of to fix the problem.
“I started with management first, the new management here. You leave a message and he’s not helping at all,” Willie said. “I did get the names of the owners, they live in Oregon. I called both numbers, ‘leave your name and number and we’ll get back to you. “I haven’t heard back from them. I called the Commission on Aging, I called the Department of Health, I called the director of Cadillac’s water department. I called EGLE, I called LARA, I even wanted to call the governor just to get someone to listen to me.”
The cause of the water problem is unclear, but both Willey and DiMaria blame the owners and management companies for not addressing the issue.
“I sent another email to management yesterday morning and still haven’t heard from them,” DiMaria said. “They’ve raised the rent twice since we’ve been here, just generally have no interest in doing anything for anyone here. They don’t care.”
“I’m not used to living like this, I’m used to being clean, I’m used to having my house clean,” Willie said. “Someone has to help us with this situation.”
9&10 News contacted Multi-Family Innovations and the owner. Our calls went unanswered.
