Hillcrest Apartment residents are forced to boil pots of water for bathing two weeks apartment fire.
FORT WORTH, Texas — Residents of Hillcrest Apartments in Tarrant County have been without hot water for nearly two weeks following a December 10 fire that engulfed one unit.
Following the fire, management sent an email to residents. It said, “the City of Fort Worth has required us to temporarily shut off the gas service to the property. As a result, hot water will be unavailable for the next few days.”
A resident said those few days have turned into nearly two weeks.
Christopher Davis has tested his water every day since the outage began. The result is always the same: cold, or at best, room-temperature water.
“It’s annoying. It’s truly frustrating,” Davis said.
Davis said residents have received many follow-up messages from management. But none of them give a timeline on when the repairs will be completed.
“They just copy paste and repeat, like ‘oh, there’s nothing that we can do. I’m sorry for the inconvenience,'” he said.
The lack of hot water has forced Davis into a time-consuming daily routine. He heats small amounts of water on his stove — a process that can take an hour — to get enough for a sponge bath.
“I just want to take a shower,” Davis said. He added that washing dishes and deep cleaning have become impossible.
Donald Williams, another Hillcrest resident, said tensions are rising as residents struggle to get clear answers about the situation.
“You got babies here, you got children here, this is a school spot where the school bus pick up the kids,” Williams said. “Just imagine if they had to go to school this week.”
Williams described management’s communication as dishonest.
Davis echoed the frustration.
“It’s a lot of questions that truly are just unanswered,” he said.
Office employees at Hillcrest Apartments declined to answer questions and directed inquiries to their corporate office. Requests for information about a timeline for repairs and potential compensation for residents were not returned.