Betty Pusateri has taken just one shower in her home since Jan. 20. Melanie Leggens has been able to take three.
“My sister lives in Delmont, but I’m not driving out there every day to take a shower,” Leggens said. “I have a bucket of water and a bar of soap. I’m roughing it.”
Leggens’ porch and others in the Holiday Hills Mobile Home Park in Murrysville are loaded with stacks of potable water from the Westmoreland Food Bank because Leggens, Pusateri and other residents have had to deal with multiple interruptions to their water service in the past 45 days.
And they’re receiving seemingly little positive response from property managers Carlson & Associates of Pittsburgh.
In February, Carlson & Associates told residents it had been meeting with the Plum Borough Municipal Authority, which supplies water to the private line servicing the park, about the water issues.
Municipal authority system manager Mike DiGuilio says that’s not true.
“We just found out about this last week,” DiGuilio said. “A plumber called and wanted to know if we could turn the water on to Holiday Hills. But we never got any calls to shut the water off.”
DiGuilio said authority workers checked their line, which connects near the Sampson Family YMCA on Golden Mile Highway in Plum and runs about 1,800 feet uphill to the mobile home park.
“There was water there and plenty of pressure to get it up the hill,” DiGuilio said.
On Monday, DiGuilio spoke with the plumber again and was told the local fire department had given him permission to hook up to a Plum fire hydrant to get residents access to water.
“I called our fire guys, and no one gave them permission to do that,” DiGuilio said. “In the meantime, they told residents that this was an issue with Plum Borough and that they’d met with me multiple times, which is a lie.”
Carlson property manager Luke O’Brien said it was a simple miscommunication, that they were talking with Plum Borough staff members rather than those from the authority.
DiGuilio said the main problem is with a pressure regulator in the private 1-inch water line that brings water up from Golden Mile Highway into Holiday Hills.
But it’s not the only problem. The original water line is being replaced after frigid temperatures this winter caused it to freeze and sustain damage. A temporary above-ground line was installed at the end of February, but the most recent cold snap also caused it to freeze March 3. Water was cut off to the park both times.
Murrysville code inspectors have issued two violations to property owners Hillside Court LLC, on Feb. 2 and Feb. 26, for failing to maintain plumbing facilities and maintain the water supply.
On Monday, a work crew hired by Carlson & Associates was digging a trench for a new water line when it struck a Peoples Gas pipe.
“They shut off the nearest gas meter and cut off the gas to my father’s house and another house,” said Holiday Hills resident Ashley Wilborn.
On Tuesday, a Peoples Gas crew was at the park reestablishing service to both homes and marking out the remainder of the line on the property. DiGuilio said authority workers eventually opted to put a water meter on a fire hydrant as a temporary solution.
“This isn’t our problem, but I don’t want these folks going without water,” he said.
On Wednesday afternoon, several residents said they still do not have significant water pressure.
“They’ve pretty much been giving us the runaround,” Leggens said of the management company. “I’ve had to bring home big jugs of water from work to flush the toilet.”
Resident D.J. Davis said she’s grateful to the county food bank for supplying residents with drinking water, which she helped distribute throughout the park.
“We really appreciate them helping us make it through this hellish situation,” Davis said. “The only water we got from the property managers was three 1-gallon jugs delivered to each home in January.”
Other complaints
The lack of running water isn’t the only issue Holiday Hills residents have had trouble getting addressed.
Beth Taylor said she waited nearly two months for Carlson to send someone to address black mold growing in several areas of her home because of water leaking through the roof. Taylor said that while she was waiting for someone to address the black mold, she watched out her window as another work crew renovated a completely unoccupied unit.
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“We’ve been having maintenance issues with this new management company since they acquired this park,” Taylor said.
O’Brien said he respects residents’ concerns.
“I find that tenants often have a different view of how long it takes someone to get a problem taken care of,” he said. “When you’re without something you need, it certainly feels like it takes much longer. But we address major and minor issues with our tenants as quickly as we’re able.”
Pusateri said residents receive regular emails from O’Brien saying the company is working on the water situation, but she is skeptical.
“There was one night last week when I just sat and cried,” she said. “It’s really beyond belief.”
Pusateri and several other residents said, starting this month, they are withholding their rent until the situation is resolved.
In a communication sent to residents Wednesday, O’Brien said the new trench should be dug and water service should be fully restored by early next week.