Man rewires apartment with no heat

[TexasStooge]

By DAN RONAN / WFAA ABC 8

DALLAS, Texas - Several Dallas families who endured days without heat and power in their apartments have the lights and furnaces back on - but apparently not through any action of their building management company.

A tenant in the building at the Esters Garden apartments says he was fed up after repeatedly calling the company's maintenance man and getting no help.

Using a screwdriver and pliers, 65-year-old Will King fixed the problem and got the power back on, at least for the time being.

"I took my screwdriver and stuck it up under there where it made contact and the lights came on," said King.

He re-wired the panel after they endured one of the coldest days of the winter without heat. Today icicles outside their apartment are melting.

"I don't want to no, never go through that no more," he says.

Will King says he called the maintenance staff several times over the weekend.

Mable King, his wife, finally reached someone Sunday, but he refused to look at the problem for several hours. "He just came out and looked at it and he went onto church, him and his wife," she says.

By then the temperature in the apartment was in the 40s.

The buildings manager disputes what happened but they turned down our request for an interview.

This is what conditions looked like over the weekend in the King's apartment - dark and cold.

Another family -- hurricane Katrina evacuees -- also had no power and heat.

Other tenants say the complex has chronic heat and electric problems.

"Our side has heat, their side doesn't. we have electricity, they have partial electricity," said Tasha Marsh, a resident.

Will King is fed up.

"I'm not going to let me and my wife, live like this," he says.

Will King says at best he's jerry-rigged a temporary solution.

But he says he's not an electrician.

And he and the other tenants want a permanent fix to the chronic power and heat problems.