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Residents at Pleasanton’s Springhouse Apartments have been experiencing their own drought since Friday afternoon when the apartment’s main high-pressure water pipe broke.
The water supply has been stopped for more than 300 apartment units located on 5505 Springhouse Drive, according to a notice given to residents by management Sunday night.
Pleasanton’s building official George Thomas said it could take up to a day and a half to permanently restore the water.
“Our contractors will return on Monday to continue on repairs,” the Springhouse management notice stated Sunday.
Resident Michael Todd said Monday morning that he has not seen any construction crews or any construction being done.
“It’s like camping,” Todd said, adding that he wasn’t able to go to work Monday because he doesn’t have the ability to shower.
The apartment complex management declined to comment on the issue as they are trying to “focus on getting water back to the folks.”
“Our crews have been available since Friday and provided all the necessary permitting to initiate repair by private contractors,” said Pleasanton City Manager Nelson Fialho.
A contractor attempted to repair the pipe on Saturday, but the repair resulted in another pipe section blowing out due to the high pressure, Thomas said.
After contacting around four contractors, the property management has found a contractor that can repair the water pipe – which the other contractors did not have the ability to do, Thomas added Monday afternoon.
“I’m dealing with it, doing what I can,” said resident Chris DeAndre, who is planning to check into a hotel.
According to Thomas, the property owners are paying for residents’ hotel accommodations, as well as offering compensation for July’s rent.
Portable toilets and sinks were placed throughout the complex Monday morning, and the leasing office is providing bottled water to residents.
One resident who asked to remain anonymous said some residents have been scooping water out of the swimming pool to fill their toilets.
According to Todd, he has seen fewer residents at the complex since the water was shut off on Friday. There were many empty parking spots seen Monday afternoon.
“The city remains on standby to assist the property owner, their crews, and the property management company,” said Fialho.
The only info the management has given it’s tenants is that the water problem is being worked on. The water was shut off Friday afternoon and not a peep was heard from the management til the evening of Saturday! If you ask for more than one gallon of water each day the management asks you not to take more so everyone can have. But what if you are just one person? or a family of 4? Nothing has been communicated about restitution or vouchers! We shouldn’t have to dig or beg for this information it should be offered up. SLUM!
Springhouse is a joke, the water was shut off on Friday afternoon and no one was notified. I only found out because I found one of the maintenance guys around 10pm riding around on a cart. He didn’t even know when they were going to start working on it. Saturday morning I saw nothing but the maintenance guys screwing around as usual. I came back 8 hours later and they’re screwing around sitting around the hole laughing and talking this place is such a joke, for as much as they charge they should of had someone out there Friday. They need to do more than compensate for rent, communication between the office and tenants is non-existent. Don’t move here!! Nothing but problems old buildings that they don’t want to pay for proper upkeep so they cookie cut everything.
They are just trying to mint money from the old property. They haven’t had the courtesy to even let us know till Saturday night. Nor did the City of Pleasanton official were visible any where around. The owners have taken everyone for granted. This guys should be heavily penalized for making it a safety and health hazard for community. This is outright pathetic service even after paying such an high rent.No Preventative maintenance of any sort.
I know for a fact the “powers that be” went the cheap route in regard to dealing with the water outage. They have handled it poorly, wasted valuable time and act like we are annoying them. This complex charges a very high rate and truthfully? It’s not worth it. The manager is arrogant. Everything is hush hush as they don’t want to come out and let people know how we will be compensated for this mess. God forbid their is a fire as we have no hydrant water or water for the sprinkler system. So yeah… It makes total sense too fix this on the “cheap”. Shame on Springhouse Apartments.
Mgmt of this community actually cheated their residents by providing unreasonable ETA on Friday, Saturday and Sunday…. They were keep on telling the problem will be resolved with in couple of hours. Only by Sunday evening, they informed that whatever they fixed did not work and they don’t know whey it will be resolved. Pathetic.
Obviously this all could have been prevented had the IRS not stolen the election for Obama. C’mon wise guys, show me evidence that that isn’t what happened!
Weekly —
Who is the owner? The management company? Do they have other properties in the area. IF this information were known, folks could factor it in when deciding to whom they will fork over 40% of their income per month.
It is shameful that a large complex with a “management company” would restrict people to one gallon of water — and otherwise not inform tenants of their options.
We don’t have these issues up here in hi-so land.
blame it on the citizens that pay rent…how petty!
a few of them must be exhibitionists thatwant to do their business curbside…disgusting and i mean it!
Tom F, you must not live in Castlewood as I can remember a few times that we have been with out water the last time that I remember was a Thanksgiving weekend and we had no water for 14 hours!
This may be the future for many of us- no running water. + No way for any maint worker to fix the “problem” we created for ourselves.
It also means their fire sprinklers do not work either.
That could be a life threatening situation, especially
since the building is built larger depending on the fire sprinkler trade offs,
and the fire alarm depends on the sprinkler waterflow alarm.
There are ways to temporarily partly restore the fire sprinklers in an emergency like this,
such as running a fire hose or similar from the hydrant to the fire sprinklers.
Hope they get this fixed,
and figure out what to do to prevent this from affecting so many in the future.
@marie I have storage and purification facilities. I have solar power, battery back-up power and an underground generator. I have a 1000 MRE’s and other food stuffs. I can go completely self sufficient for at least a year.
Bad news for tenants, very good news for “lawyers” filing a class action suit!!! Actually surprised they aren’t passing out their business cards at the complex entrances yet. Just went by there and I didn’t see any of those “vultures” circling overhead yet.
I read somewhere the leak is fixed. But, for the future what kind of temporary fix can be instituted? Is fire hydrant water potable? Buy a lot of hoses and connect them to nearest working outlet?
It’s time to consider reserve survival supplies: 2 week water supply, 2 week food supply, various canned/dry fruit, emergency meds for 2 weeks, flashlight, radio, matches, blankets/sleeping bags, tent, emergency telephone numbers and 2 cell phones, a mean to protect yourself from predators, etc. etc. etc.
Take a First Aids class and hope for the best.
cholo’s last comment is the best. read it and be prepared even you Tom in castlewood
I think the advice of having emergency supplies on hand is great, but you have to realize that someone living in an apartment doesn’t likely have a lot of extra space for gallons of water and food and all of that.
I am worried for those residents who might not have the cash on hand or available credit to stay in a hotel so they are probably the ones left behind without running water. This is unfair as the complex should have handed out vouchers instead of saying they were going to refund fees. There aren’t really any cheap motels/hotels around here and living in a hotel mean you eat out for all meals unless you rent a small studio hotel which is very expensive.
I think the City of Pleasanton needs to keep a stock of emergency items for situations like this so those without funds to pay upfront hotel fees won’t suffer as these folks must be. We aren’t a poor city and we need to take care of our own. Surely there’s space in a city owned building somewhere that could hold a few days worth of emergency supplies for future situations like this.
My two cents anyway.
To the residents: I’m so sorry for what you are going through. If I didn’t have a full house, I’d be happy to put you up myself.
So much complaining from people that do not even live at Springhouse! I do live here and commend the staff for their quick response and hard work. We had plentiful water, porta pottys and hand wash stations. Notices were provided to us throughout the ordeal and the office was staffed 24-7. You should be glad that we are in such capable hands!
Thank you Parkson for the comment from someone that was really there. This was a very complicated event that required many different tradesman and effort, hours, expertise. The staff provided us with support and resources throughout and timely updates. Those who know are grateful for the exceptional care and concern shown by the Springhouse Apartments staff !