‘We’re just cooking’: Tenants in Winnipeg apartment calling for central air after unexpected heatwave

Over the past week, Winnipeg has seen a heatwave that’s brought temperatures over 35 degrees Celsius.

At apartment building L & B Towers on Edison Avenue, tenants say the central air hasn’t been turned on, and they’re burning up in their apartments.

“I was not getting any kind of sleep at all,” said Logan Edwards, a tenant of 15 years. “Maybe one or two hours a night.”

Edwards, who works from home, says he spent $300 on an air conditioning unit just to make it through the heatwave.

“I took out an advance from my place of employment to afford that to get it going so I could get a couple hours of sleep because it was starting to affect my work,” he told CityNews.

“Every single year it’s a struggle. There’s always about two weeks where it’s a little hotter than I’m comfortable with, but it’s never been this bad.”

Edwards, who was left with a heat rash on his chest because of the heatwave, claims his apartment’s temperature was over 30 degrees when he contacted the property managers, Edison Properties.

“The advice I was given was to open a window at night,” he recounted. “And that was useless first of all, because it’s like 26, 27 at night, so that does not do anything. It just circulates the hot air. And now there’s an air quality warning. Even if it did cool down, like today it’s not quite as bad, I don’t have that option.

“No compassion whatsoever for the tenants. I can almost guarantee you the people in that office that took my call were in an air-conditioned office, so I doubt they have any idea what we’re dealing with.”

In Manitoba, tenants do not have a legal right to air conditioning.

“I’m short of breath at night,” said Bruce Evans, a tenant of 27 years.

“We hit 35, 36 degrees in the last couple of days and we’re just cooking.”

Evans says he’s worried about his health and the health of seniors, who make up over half of the building’s tenants.

“This building in particular has a very large percentage of elderly tenants,” he explained. “So I know that heat and cold temperatures seem to affect them significantly more.”

Added Edwards: “When it comes to someone’s personal health and them, you know it potentially being fatal if it’s a heatwave like this. I mean, I don’t want to exaggerate but let’s be real. It’s been bad.”

The building does have a pool, which could help tenants cool down under normal circumstances, but it’s closed for repairs.

CityNews reached out to Edison Properties via phone and email, but did not receive a response.

A notice posted in the building’s elevator says the central air conditioning will be activated the week of May 20, but the system shuts down if temperatures fall below 13 degrees.

“Maybe think, OK, couple days in advance, let’s get this thing going if it takes a while to start up. But not so much here,” said Edwards.

“Every year is getting warmer and warmer, winters are even getting milder. You can’t rely on information that you had 10 years ago when it was still right now, probably 10 degrees out, ’cause that’s not the reality anymore.”

“I don’t think we should have to live like that,” added Evans.