It was just six months ago when an excited Hilda Reimer signed the papers for a condo unit at Chinook Manor.
“I thought, ‘This will be my last home’… I actually lived here 40 years ago when they were rentals.”
Unfortunately, Reimer broke her pelvis during the winter move.
Since then, she’s been recovering and waiting for warmer weather to finally enjoy her new home to the fullest.
“I have a scooter to go longer distances, I was looking forward to all that. But here we are, stuck in our homes.”
Just days after her 82nd birthday, Reimer says the building’s lone elevator stopped working.
She hoped it would be fixed after the May long weekend, but now it’s been three weeks — and she’s been trapped inside ever since.
“We’re prisoners in my home. It’s quite the barrier — and it’s not impacting me, it’s impacting many people in this building.”
Throughout this turbulent period, Reimer’s missed important medical appointments. Her recovery has slowed, as have the visits.
“Friends of mine can’t come over, and I can’t go over to see them. Some of them are older and can’t do stairs,” Reimer laughed.
“We’re a bunch of old farts.”
There’s one moment Reimer missed out on that she’ll never get back.
“My former husband passed away in hospice just recently,” she said.
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“I couldn’t go to see him and he was asking for me.
“I will always regret that I couldn’t go and visit him.”
Reimer’s son, Darren Delorme, has been working through that grief alongside his mother.
“That put a lot of stress on myself, my mom, my dad… because she couldn’t go see him in hospice.”
He’s spent much of the past three weeks lending a hand to his mother and others.
“I’ve come to help her do laundry, the facility is in the basement… Somebody had a big suitcase, I helped her carry it up — she was just grunting trying to carry her luggage and I carried that up to the fifth floor. I encountered someone bringing groceries in that I helped with… it’s just not fair.”
“I don’t know what I would have done without, him really,” Reimer explains.
She says there’s still no word on when the missing part needed to fix the elevator may arrive.
Most affected people believe the building’s owners are doing everything they can to fix the problem — but also think it could have been avoided altogether.
“This problem could have been taken care of had (the condo board) had the part ready.”
“They’d been recommended to upgrade parts but they chose not to, and here we are.”
Global News reached out to Diversified Property Management, which looks after Chinook Manor.
When asked directly if the group is expediting the repairs as quickly as possible, representatives declined to comment.
The home is advertised as a 40+ community.
While not a senior’s home by definition, Delorme says many of his mom’s neighbours are older and face similar challenges.
“It stands to reason there’s going to be a higher population of seniors living here with that criteria.”
“I would suggest to the (condo board president) to do a survey of this whole building and see who would have purchased a unit. If it was a five-storey walkup, I can probably tell you… nobody.”
It’s not an uncommon issue for seniors to run into, according to a local advocate.
“We certainly work with partners who have brand new, beautiful buildings,” explained Larry Mathieson, president & CEO of Unison Alberta.
“But there are a lot of buildings in the province where they’re older… been around for decades. (Owners) are constantly attending to things that might present a safety or mobility issue.”
It’s something Unison witnessed first hand just a few years ago.
“At our (Elder Abuse Shelter), we had to completely rebuild the elevator — not just because there was problems with it, but replacement issues. (Repairing elevators) is a fairly specialized trade,” Mathieson said.
“Elevators like this that are fairly deep into their life cycle… very quickly parts can become obsolete.”
Mathieson says his group and others can offer resources to seniors who find themselves in situations like this and haven’t been able to get a resolution with their housing provider.
Reimer’s only been able to take in the warm summer air through her third-floor balcony, but she’s hoping that all changes for the better, soon.
“It’s a comfortable home, but c’mon — you’ve got a life to live and when you’re older, you gotta live it… because you don’t know how long you’ve got.”
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