Senior apartment residents without power say building generator hasn't worked in 5 years

HIGHLAND PARK, Mich. (FOX 2) - Residents of a Highland Park senior citizen apartment complex say they’re fed up.

"They have a generator that hasn’t been working in five years," said Michelle Duhart.

After the powerful storms moved through Monday night, the residents say they don’t have power - and they’re calling on their landlord to do the right thing.

"I have to walk down seven flights of steps to get out, I’m on oxygen I have no electricity to plug in my machine," said Carol Sawyer.

DTE said because of the large amount of downed wires caused by the storm and a power restoration is not their main focus right now.

"We are dealing with approximately 3,000 wires that are down because of wild weather," said a DTE spokeman. "We have all of our resources working on wires down right now, we pulled all restoration resources."

So as these residents and thousands of others wait for restoration, activists are speaking out on behalf of these seniors

"Do the right thing, get that generator up and running, you have to be proactive," said activist Janice Walker.

"We need to make sure these facilities Ate doing the right thing and seniors who age at home are provided with a proper care," activist Maurice Turner said.

Related: When will power be restored in Southeast Michigan? When DTE expects lights to be back on for most

The FOX 2 Problem Solvers reached out to the management company for this building and we are still waiting for comment.

So for now these seniors have decided to sit outside instead of their hot apartments

Turner said that those helping the seniors brought bottled water, ice and food to help.

"They have to start doing preventive maintenance this building doesn’t even have a PA system," Walker said. "How do you get in touch with people if there’s a fire ? Go knock on every door ?"