Wedgewood tenants suffer without AC
While the area experienced an early heat wave this week, residents of the Wedgewood Apartments in Annandale suffered without air conditioning.
Outside, the temperature has been in the 90s, which is 20 to 25 degrees above normal for this time of year.
Inside Wedgewood tenant A. Osmani’s home, a thermometer recorded a temperature of 103 degrees on April 15.
Pratum, the company contracted by Fairfax County Housing and Development to manage the county-owned property, doesn’t plan to turn on the air conditioning system for another month.
In a message to management, Omani wrote, “The boilers are on. The heat is running. Are you trying to send us to the hospital?” She didn’t get an answer.
“They’re not accountable. They don’t respond,” Omani said.
Related story: Wedgewood tenants lack heat and hot water
“It’s like a stove inside the apartment,” she said. It’s too hot to sleep, and she’s worried about her medications getting ruined in the heat, as they can’t be refrigerated.
“The lack of a functional air conditioning system is making the unit practically uninhabitable,” Omani wrote in another message to Pratum. “This situation is not merely an inconvenience; it is a health risk that I consider inhumane for myself and the other residents.”
It was also miserably hot in her neighbor Haja’s apartment, even standing next to a fan. It’s been so hot, she and her 23-month-old daughter have trouble sleeping.
Brenda, another Wedgewood tenant, said she’s been waking up covered with sweat and has to take multiple showers a day. It’s too hot to turn on the stove, and she worries about the health of her 11-year-old son, who has asthma.
No one answers when she calls the management office, Brenda said.
A comfortable living space is “a basic human right,” she said. “Now that we’re having global warming, they should turn off the heat earlier.”
A compliance specialist at Pratum told Annandale Today that the Wedgewood has a boiler-chiller system, and they won’t switch over to air conditioning until May 15.
Allyson Pearce of the Fairfax County Department of Housing and Community Development confirmed that the county code doesn’t require multifamily housing properties to turn on air conditioning until May 15.
Changing from the boiler to the chiller is more complicated than just flipping a switch, Pearce said. If it gets cold again and they need to turn the boiler back on, “it can really stress the system.”
Related story: Wedgewood tenants complain about mice, mold, and water outages
The lack of AC is just the latest of a long list of complaints by Wedgewood tenants.
Omani told Pratum in January that her dishwasher was broken, and it still hasn’t been fixed. She also complained recently about mice in a ceiling light dropping poop on a table, a broken balcony door, and black mold in the laundry room.
When she reported problems, she said an employer in the management office gave her a fake name and failed to follow up.
Haja also said the Wedgewood management has failed to address numerous problems in her apartment, including rats, cockroaches, and a lack of hot water for nearly a week during a cold spell in the winter. “We always have issues,” she said. “It’s just exhausting.”
My mother ac wasn’t broken when it was freezing and still havnt fixed it yet. It’s been like 4 months now. I know they haven durn on the heat but they didnt even fix it when it was freezing cold. These people don’t care.
The Wedgewood apartments are poorly managed. My yard back up to them. In the summer you sometimes smell the nasty dumpster. Their Rats and mice come into our yard. The crows bring their dumpster finds and eat it in our yard. The only thing Wedgewood does is re-enforce their parking. As result the people that live in those apartments come and park in front of our homes ( it is a no parking zone from 10pm to 10 am). You can only park on the street with a county issued pass.
I have lived in apartments ( patriot village) yes, you have to wait until they turn it on. I remember it being closer to the end of May.
Not sure why you’re always focusing on Wedgewood. I live in Vistas of Annandale and have for over 5 years. We also do not have AC and won’t until May 15th. It’s like this every year and is nothing new.
Let us know when there are problems at The Vistas.
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Staff wanted to make a copy of resident’s driver’e license and put on a stamp with Wedgwood logo as a confirmation that the management received resident’s requests for repairs. The same staff gave a fake name to the resident when the resident asked for staff’s identity.
And what is Supervisor Jimenez doing to get this situation resolved? Absolutely nothing. Just as he did when there were horrible conditions at the Bailey’s Shelter.
As the article said, this is normal. The government has a mandated not later than May 15 switch. Full building/multi-building cooling/heating systems always operated in this manner. I’ve been in government buildings on base where had radiators that were heating, until the day the plant switched to chilled water. I’ve seen college dorms with the same.
That said, the tenant association could request of the building management, that with a majority of the tenants ratify a switch over day that preceded the govt mandated (by May 15), with the understanding that it was a once and done until the fall switchover back to heat. 2 days of 90s last week, but it is forecast to be 33 on Monday. It likely is easier to live with space heaters for a day or two if it gets chilly again.