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Residents Furious Broken Elevator Miami Beach Building Still Not Fixed

MIAMI (CBS4) – Suffering from arthritis, osteoporosis and spinal disease, 79 year-old Kaaren Mils gets to and from her Barclay Building apartment on Miami Beach with the aid of a walker and her backside, dragging herself up and down two flights of stairs, one agonizing step at a time.

Why? The building's elevator doesn't work.  It hasn't worked for more than eight months.

The Miami Beach Development Corporation (MBDC) told CBS4 the elevator would be up and running by the end of August, but that deadline came and went and the elevator is still broken. The problem? A custom elevator part that was ordered weeks ago but has yet to arrive.

When asked if he regretted how long the issue has gone on, MBDC President Roberto Datorre replied "Well of course, you know. I have my grandmother and my mother and I wouldn't want them to go through that!"

Datorre could not provide an exact date of when the elevator would be fixed.

Meanwhile Mils, who recently injured her shoulders, fears she will be trapped inside her apartment unable to get to and from work.

Although she says it seldom happens, Mils says she is angry

"What I want to say isn't fit for print and I'm certainly not going to say it on TV because what I would be saying would probably make a sailor blush," said Mils.

Datorre has offered to move Mils to a first floor apartment, but Mils says she won't consider the move because it is a smaller space and also because she would still have to climb stairs, just not as many.

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