Watch CBS News

High-Rise Headache: Downtown Tenants Without Water, Elevator Access Told To Use Porta-Potties

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — Tenants of Capitol Towers in downtown Sacramento are calling for change after dealing with issues involving broken elevators, no water and flooded-out floors.

The ownership company points to old architecture that's creating these issues for the apartments.

At one point, with no water, tenants were told to use porta-potties parked outside the building.

"There is literally water coming out of the ceiling," said Joe Miller, a tenant.

Wednesday night, tenants say it was raining inside the building.

"This is what my kids had to walk through to get to our apartment," said David Reed, who showed us a photo of the flooding.

After a pipe burst and a sewer issue, Reed says the first three floors were flooded out.

"We woke up to them banging on the door, and it was the fire department and the alarms were going off," he said.

The elevators stopped, too. Older tenants were told they'd have to take the stairs.

"There are older people, people with a wheelchair, it's been tough days for us," said Sacramento Republic FC Midfielder Luis Felipe.

He lives on one of the top floors and has family in town from Brazil.

"We have no water to shower, to do anything, and the day after that, we didn't have an elevator," he said.

He says every other month there seems to be an issue with the building. The water's been out four times in 45 days, he says.

The ownership company offered each tenant $50 off their rent. They also put porta-potties outside when the water was off.

In a statement, Weidner Apartment Homes says this building has been plagued with problems as they deal with aging city infrastructure. The statement read:

"The team at Capital Towers was onsite and responded immediately to an unexpected sewer backup that occurred during a scheduled long term upgrade to the system that serves the building. This set off a subsequent chain of unfortunate events that affected and inconvenienced our residents in a major way, and we are focused on getting repairs completed as soon as possible. We're sorry for this disruption to the enjoyment of our resident's apartment homes, and hope to restore all of the building systems as quickly as we can."

CBS13 reached out to Sacramento City Code Enforcement. They say they're not responsible for any repairs, the owners are. But code enforcement said they've received more than one complaint about the issues.

The Sacramento Housing and Dangerous Buildings section is aware of recent complaints and building inspectors will be on the property Friday.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.