WASHINGTON, DC — Artricia Morton and Walter Mendez live in different parts of town, but both say the elevators they rely on are dangerous. They are desperate and afraid.
Morton lives in Hillcrest House Apartments in Southeast DC. She has nerve damage in her right leg and trouble breathing - she needs an elevator. But shes says the one in her building is broken down so often that it's taken out of service.
"There's so many people in this building that are afraid to open their mouth because they think we don't have any rights, but we do have rights," a tearful Morton said.
She's not the only one - four of her neighbors, who won't go on camera, said they're always complaining to the building's management.
The property manager at Hillcrest House Apartments disputes the tenant's claims that the elevator is always broken down, but inspection reports from the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs document more than a dozen violations and problems with the elevator since November 2015. It was red tagged as a "life and limb hazard," and "unsafe for public use," in October 2017.
"I don't like canceling my doctor's appointments because I know that they are very important as far as my health is concerned, but, I have to do what I have to do," Morton said,
Back in January, Walter Mendez was rushed to the hospital after getting trapped in the elevator inside his Potomac Place Tower apartment building in Southwest DC.
"It dropped me down to the fourth floor, 100 miles an hour. It dropped me off from the chair! It feels like a nightmare!" Mendez said.
"I thought I was going to die!," Mendez said.
Managers did not respond to our emails or repeated calls. But, we've learned through DCRA inspection reports the elevators at Potomac Place Tower had damaged suspension ropes in 2011 and 2012, a phone that did not comply with the federal law for the disabled in 2012 and 2013, and a citation for not passing an annual safety test in 2015.
The agency in charge of making sure those elevators are safe and up to code for people like Morton and Mendez is DCRA. The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs.
"What are they regulating? They're not regulating the elevator service, not here anyway," Morton said.
Residents like Morton said the person who heads up that agency, Melinda Bolling, is ignoring them.
Director Bolling disagrees. "If they need an elevator repair, we're out there trying to work with the property owner to make sure that it happens as quickly as possible and if it can't, we step in their place," she said.
However, Audrick Payne said issues with elevators in the city are a much bigger problem. Payne is a certified elevator inspector with more than 20 years experience with DCRA and he still works there. He is one of their own and he's taking them to task.
He testified in a DC Council Oversight Committee hearing that, "The 'R' in regulatory affairs was extinguished a long time ago."
For more than a decade, Inspector Payne has testified before the city council about problems in the agency. Here's one of those problems: There are nearly 20,000 elevators in the city and only three inspectors on staff. That means, one inspector would be responsible for more than 6,000 elevators a year.
Payne said that there is no way he could get to inspect them all.
DCRA tries to fill in the gap with outside third-party inspection companies, but Payne said they're not getting the job done either. In fact, he was called to Hillcrest House after one of those outside inspectors checked out the elevator that still wasn't up to code.
He said to WUSA 9's Delia Goncalves that the elevator at Hillcrest House has had countless violations since 2015 and should have never been approved in the first place, but it was approved even though the elevator lacked a fire recall system, which stops the elevator in case of a fire in the building, and the safety device that keeps you inside of the cab if it stops in between floors so that you don't jump out, did not work.
Those are some of the issues that have never been fixed. On the phone, Hillcrest House managers told WUSA 9 that their 50-year-old elevator is bound to break down occasionally, but he said he trusts the inspection company hired to keep it running.
Inspector Payne said the issues were never repaired, yet, the apartment complex has a license to run its elevators.
DCRA documents show there were years when Hillcrest House owners didn't renew its elevator license.
DCRA gave its stamp of approval anyway, despite the agency's own inspection reports citing multiple safety infractions.
The property manager suggested a change in management could be the reason why there were lapses in renewing their license.
After months of interview requests, we finally caught up with DCRA Director Bolling at one of those oversight hearings to get some answers.
"What I would say is that we issue over 50,000 permits las year and you do have people who complain, but they're a small percentage," DCRA Director Bolling said.
Payne said these elevator safety issues are happening all over the city in places you may go to every day.
