No water at Chalet Village apartments - MSNewsNow.com - Jackson, MS

No water at Chalet Village apartments

It's quiet at the Chalet Village apartment building that faces Hiawatha Street. It's even quieter at the other building, which is completely boarded up.

The few remaining tenants wonder if they've been forgotten, because for the past few days, some say weeks, there's been no running water.

"They turned it off, didn't let us know nothing. My mom called about the rent because the water go with the rent. You don't pay no water bill," said tenant Jimmy Windom.

Their water is included in the $300 a month rent they pay to the West Jackson Community Development Corporation. And as tenants store buckets of water that they've filled up elsewhere, they don't seem to understand how to help themselves.

We asked Windom if he or others had called the city.

"No... ain't nothing happen like that," said Windom.

According to the West Jackson CDC, the water problem has nothing to do with the landlord not paying bills, as the tenants believe. It's due to something else.

"Vandalism," said CDC Director Linda Carter. "Pretty much the neighbors know who the culprits are, from taking hot water heaters, sinks, walking down the street with them."

Carter said the vandals are after copper and scrap metal to sell. She hopes the water will be back on by Wednesday night.

"We have a plumber over there now," she said. "They have to solder the damage where they tried to pull up the water from the piping. It is very costly. If we don't receive funding for those units pretty soon, we're gonna board the whole thing up."

Paying tenants will then be moved into another property owned by West Jackson CDC. 

The City of Jackson has a different story as well. Spokesman Chris Mims said there is a history of non-payment on the water bill from the West Jackson Community Development Corporation. The city plans to turn the water back on, and code enforcement will be going out to inspect.

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