Hundreds of residents in a California condominium were without hot water and cooking appliances for weeks due to a gas leak, KCAL News reported.
Natural gas, or methane gas, has become an incredibly contentious issue in recent years. While Tennessee and Ohio have passed laws declaring it a "clean" or "green" source of energy, it's actually incredibly harmful to human health and is a major factor in Earth's rising temperature.
For these reasons, Los Angeles and the state of New York have begun banning gas in new buildings. This leaves buyers with healthier, more affordable, and more eco-friendly electric options, including solar panels.
Now, La Veta Monterey condominium residents have discovered a new reason to make the switch: reliability. According to KCAL News, the entire 210-unit condominium had its gas cut off on June 2, and it still hadn't been restored by June 20.
"We call the management company, Huntington West," resident Lee Gebran told KCAL News. "We call them, they hang up on me because there's lots of people calling them. I said you need to put us in a hotel where we can take a shower … [They said] absolutely not."
KCAL News reported that there was no word of when the gas would be repaired. According to the supplier, SoCalGas, the leak was somewhere on La Veta Monterey's end, and therefore it was the property owner's responsibility to fix it.
While KCAL News said it found evidence of some repair attempts, a plumber confirmed that there were still leaks in the condominium's rusty, corroded pipes.
At a homeowner's meeting for the community on June 19, residents said they didn't receive any answers and felt like they were getting the runaround, KCAL News claimed. They did find that repairs might cost as much as $1 million.
While electricity can also be cut off due to problems with the lines, a home with its own clean energy, such as solar panels or wind power, is much more independent. These homes can supply their own power during an outage. Some homes even generate enough electricity to sell some back to the power company.
La Veta Monterey residents, on the other hand, were stuck waiting for repairs, with no say in how the situation would be handled. "Just surviving," resident Diana Rasmussen told KCAL News. "We feel like we're camping in our home."
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