WALCOTT – When Pamela Mangan and her husband, Keith Adams, tried to leave their apartment in Wolcott Monday morning, they quickly realized a snowstorm had dumped about 16 inches of snow in front of the building, locking them out.
“We couldn’t get out of the front door,” said Mangan, 72. “By pushing, pushing, pushing, we finally got the door open… We all got out and started shoveling what we could… When I looked around, we saw that all the other apartment doors were blocked with snow.”
Mangan and her husband were among the residents of Village Apartments on Wolf Mountain Road who were stuck in their home for more than 24 hours after the snowstorm due to delays in snow clearing. Residents said crews arrived around 10 a.m. Tuesday to clear the snow.
The complex has 17 buildings, each with about eight apartments, as well as a laundry area and a community room, where the complex’s property manager works. Mangan said the apartment complex is owned by SH Management, a Michigan-based property management company.
SH management declined to comment.
“I really feel like sometimes it doesn’t matter that we don’t matter, just like it doesn’t matter that they don’t clean up our place,” Mangan said.
Mayor Thomas Dunn said he heard comments on social media about residents trapped in their homes and received calls from residents and their families asking for help. He said he visited the apartment complex on Tuesday and found snow on apartment doors and residents unable to leave their homes, adding that residents and their families were “up in arms.”
“It’s unacceptable that people are stuck at home,” Dunn said.
Mangan, who lives in Building 13 of Village Apartments, said she saw family members and caregivers unable to enter their apartments Monday because of heavy snow.
“People can’t get out of their apartments to clean their cars or move their cars, so everything hinges on the fact that the apartments are all cordoned off,” she said. “They’re very frustrated – they don’t know who to call, and when they call, they don’t get a response.”
Mangan said some residents called Wolcott police, who responded to the building Monday. Dunn confirmed that multiple calls were made to police “requesting that the matter be recorded.”
Mangan said the apartment complex’s landscaper arrived Tuesday morning with a snowblower and plow and some young men shoveling the snow. She said clearing the snow “took quite a while.”
Landscapers are expected to return to the building on Wednesday to clean the apartment’s back entrance and laundry area, she said.
Dunn said because the apartment building is private property, it would be “difficult” for the town to take any action unless there was an emergency. He said the town hopes to sit down with property owners to discuss snow removal.
Mangan said once residents were able to leave their homes, they all “talked about how we couldn’t leave our homes and what was going to happen,” as well as their concerns for their own safety and that of their caregivers.
“We seem to have been forgotten,” Mangan said. “I’m concerned about not only my and my husband’s safety, but the safety of our other residents. I do understand that this was a severe storm, but given the number of residents, we expected more care and compassion for the need for nursing staff or medical support.”
This article was originally published on ‘We don’t matter’: Wolcott apartment complex residents say snowstorm trapped them for 24 hours.
