Lengthy hot water outage at apartment complex

COBB COUNTY, Ga. - Residents at the District at Vinings apartment complex say they have been without hot water for nearly two weeks.

The outage reportedly came as the result of the rupture of a gas line on the property, that served the central hot water system. While residents have been updated by the property management company, Stone Mark Management LLC, they are concerned about the speed of repairs. 

"It's challenging to figure out how you are going to get to work and shower, do dishes, for me personally, I've been trying to find a new place to stay temporarily," said Lindsay H, a resident for nearly 5 years. "The past two weeks have been chaotic," she added.

Lindsay is one of hundreds of residents that are potentially facing the same conditions. 

Property managers have recently moved portable shower trailers on site, but residents we spoke with have safety concerns about the locks and site security. 

District at Vinings PR representative Terri Thornton told FOX 5 that the problem has been ongoing for 12 days, as of Monday.

Late Sunday night, property managers released this statement to FOX 5:

" Any situation involving natural gas must be handled carefully as it is a safety issue. We are working as hard as we can to get the gas turned back on, and to make residents as comfortable as possible in the meantime. When it became clear the hot water would not be back over the Labor Day weekend we brought in portable private showers as a temporary solution. A total of 64 private showers are available. They have separate women’s and men’s entrances to ensure privacy. Courtesy officers patrol the areas and crews clean the showers twice daily. Our teams have been working diligently since before the Labor Day weekend. Plumbing contractors even slept on floors to spend as much time working as possible to be sure the situation could be tested and repaired. An engineer has now developed a plan of action and progress is being made. We will give residents rent discounts based on the amount of time spent without hot water. A new phase of large-scale testing, repair and - if necessary, upgrades - is beginning to avoid this from happening again. We also hope other businesses that own the gas lines on their property learn from our experience."