Concerns grow for Vernon residents with no power as weather heats up

As residents at the Crown Villa mobile home park in Vernon, B.C., begin a fourth week without power, some are trying to still make do as best they can.

“We are just hanging in there,” said resident Lisa Cantafio-Anderson.

Cantafio-Anderson said they are using a fire pit and camping stove to cook and using bottled water to cook and wash dishes.

“My husband’s been spending money that we shouldn’t, trying to keep us going, ” Cantafio-Anderson said. “He bought us a bigger battery to run our fridge. He got us a camping shower so we can shower at home.”

But keeping going will get increasingly more difficult.

This weekend’s highs of nearly 30 C are just a taste of what’s to come, as warm temperatures persist through the week and only increase in the coming weeks.

“We need our ACs and we don’t have anything powerful enough to run them, so our house, it’s going to be an oven. We live in a tin,” Cantafio-Anderson said.

It’s not known whether the City of Vernon would step in if the situation becomes a health concern as the city did not provide a response by the time of publication.

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The power was shut off at the trailer park on April 2 after years of warnings and fines over what Technical Safety B.C.  called dangerous electrical hazards.

The property owner, Carol Goldstone, has repeatedly said she can’t afford the costly upgrades and bring it up to code, which she said are in the tens of thousands of dollars.

She said she’s been hoping to sell half the park to a developer to help with the electrical infrastructure repairs.

“I was going to go 50 per cent partnership to get a cash inflow. I need cash inflow here,” Goldstone told Global News Monday. “Everybody wanted 100 per cent that had approached me.”

Goldstone said she’s now willing to sell the entire trailer park property but with many legal issues to work out, admits it likely won’t happen quickly.

The situation is leaving residents like Cantafio-Anderson and her family with an uncertain future.

“We either want a new landlord to take over and raise our pad rent or a developer whoever to come in and say they don’t want us here and they pay us out and we can go right, but we need something,” Cantafio-Anderson said.

While some have left the park, according to Goldstone, residents in seven of the 11 units have remained.

A GoFundMe has been started to help support the affected residents.