After 9 months, elderly tenants in West Kootenay apartment finally have a functioning elevator

An elderly tenant in a multi-storey apartment building in Trail, B.C., is breathing a sigh of relief after the building elevator was repaired — after nine months of outage.

John Blizard, 78, lives in Waneta Manor. The elevator in the building has been down since February and when he last spoke with CBC, the elevator was supposed to be fixed in July. It was finally fixed on Oct. 6.

"It's made more of a hermit out of me than I ever was. I only went out of the house maybe once or twice at the most a week," Blizard told host Sarah Penton on CBC's Radio West. 

Blizard is among the building's residents who are elderly or have mobility issues. Elevator outages and subsequent delays were common across the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain issues in getting necessary parts.

Still, the nine months were a major hardship for Blizard who had to take two flights of stairs to get out of the building. 

"I take one flight at a time, and then I'd sit on the bottom step of the next set of stairs and sit there for five or 10 minutes to catch my wind again and then I'd slowly make it up to the top," he said. 

CBC has reached out to the apartment's management company, Tribe Management, which amalgamated with Gateway Property Management back in July. 

Blizard says he's excited to move on with his life and get back to his swimming routine and social activities.

"Going out was not the problem. It was the thought of coming back."