MEMPHIS, Tenn — Sunday, a South Memphis woman reached out to ABC24 saying that she has not had a working central heater for almost the entire month of January, including the week of snow and severe cold.
Vicki Murdock says she basically had to live in one room of her house during the winter storm and says she had to resort to using multiple space heaters, her oven and multiple blankets to stay warm.
“Here’s a heater here — here's a fire place heater,” she said, showing her heating setup to ABC24 cameras. “Every time I turn that [heater] on, fuses go out. Then I have a heater here.”
Murdock says her broken heating unit was removed Jan. 2. She said the problem started in late December 2023 when her ceiling fell in.
“That resulted to insulation falling inside of the wall heater,” Murdock said. “Instead of them cleaning out that heater at that moment, they just relit the pilot and that resulted into carbon monoxide coming through.”
Murdock says it was weeks before she heard from property management on the status of her heater.
ABC24 reached out to RentalCity Property Management’s Shellye Wallace, who said they tried to order the new heater Jan. 4. On Jan. 10, Wallace says they learned the model was no longer available.
The next day, they got approval to order a different one. Still, it was not until Jan. 18 until they reached out to Murdock.
“They text me and told me that the roads were so bad that they couldn't get to me,” Murdock said. “We had a whole week prior before that storm came. They made no provisions to bring me some temporary heaters or replacement heat or anything in here.”
That left Murdock having to resort to other measures to survive the freezing cold.
“I have four heaters running at the same time,” she said. “I also had my oven on and I had a pot of water on the stove in order to keep heat in the house, and I almost had to basically stay in one room.”
During the interview with ABC24 on Thursday, someone from RentalCity Property called to remind Murdock about rent. She had just one question:
“I want to know when my heater’s coming back,” she said. “It’s still winter.”
ABC24 asked to speak with property management Thursday afternoon. Close to two hours after ABC24 reached out, Murdock says she got a call saying her heater was ready to be installed.
Murdock sent ABC24 a picture Friday afternoon showing that her new heater had been installed.
RentalCity Property says they will be reimbursing her for the space heaters she needed to buy and crediting her rent for the days she did not have heat.
Bellow is their full statement and timeline of this situation:
“The issue was reported on January 2nd, the vendor assessed the situation on January 4th. On the 4th, the vendor attempted to order a part for the existing heat source. On January 10th, the manufacturer relayed that the part was no longer available for order and gave additional options that would be suitable for the residents’ home.
On January 10th, vendor relayed pricing quote to RentalCity to cover the new unit and labor. The quote was approved on January 11th and vendor was told the unit was approved to order. On January 18th, due to the dropping temps, our team reached out to the resident to check in and advise that space heaters could be purchased to get her through the rigid temperatures and that reimbursement was approved for said heaters.
4 business days later (January 24th), our team followed up with the resident to ensure she was able to purchase space heaters and reminded resident to keep the receipts handy, send them into us for reimbursement and relayed that a credit for the days without heat would be applied to her account after the issue could be resolved to ensure an adequate amount was applied.
On January 30th, we received communication from the vendor that the unit had arrived but that the schedule was booked for the next few days. Installation was attempted on February 1st; however, PTE (Permission to Enter) was denied by tenant resulting in the vendor being unable to promptly proceed with installation. The unit was rescheduled for installation today, February 2nd at 12pm.
While the situation is unfortunate and beyond the control of any property management agency, we are committed to providing exceptional service to all residents and do not take any QOl (Quality of Life) issues lightly. I’m pleased with the work done by our team to resolve the issue and look forward to serving not only this resident, but all other residents as it pertains to RentalCity Property Management in the future.”