Valencia Oliver has spent more than a week without a working stove or hot water in her Oklahoma City apartment, trying to keep two younger children fed and clean while the gas stays shut off with no end date in sight. She says the disruption started after she did something routine: asked her landlord to look at her stove.
Oliver submitted a maintenance request for her stove on Oct. 15, according to KFOR. That same day, Oklahoma Natural Gas shut off gas service to every apartment in the Manchester on May community, the station reports, citing a resident email. More than a week later, the gas still has not been turned back on.
Oliver told KFOR the lack of cooking and hot water has made daily life difficult and costly. She said she is a single mother attending college and cannot afford hotels or to keep buying food to replace meals she would normally cook at home. She also said the complex has offered residents no compensation or alternative housing while the outage drags on.
Utility Cites Safety Checks, No Timeline Given
Oklahoma Natural Gas told the outlet that repairs and required safety checks must be completed before service can be restored, and that it will coordinate with property management to turn the gas back on once those requirements are met. The utility gave no estimated timeline for when that might happen, per the station's report.
That explanation lines up with the utility's own published safety policy. Oklahoma Natural Gas states on its website that gas service is turned off and kept off until an unsafe or non-compliant appliance condition is corrected, and that its technicians must inspect visible and accessible gas appliances before service can resume. The company also says customers are responsible for maintaining their own gas equipment and appliances, according to Oklahoma Natural Gas.
Manchester on May did not respond to KFOR's inquiry about the status of gas service, the station noted. Oliver said she simply wants residents' concerns taken seriously and the issue resolved.
Not an Isolated Problem
Prolonged gas outages at apartment complexes have surfaced elsewhere in recent months. In Oak Cliff, Texas, residents at the Swope and Mangold Apartments said they went without working gas service for more than two weeks after Atmos Energy identified a gas release on Sept. 17 and shut off service when it could not reach property management, according to NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. Atmos restored service to the meter on Sept. 23 after piping passed a pressure test, but a separate property-owned gas line still needed repair and testing. Property management said contractors couldn't guarantee a specific completion date, though it offered eight vacant, ready-to-occupy units for residents who wanted to transfer.
In East Cleveland, Ohio, tenants at the Marlboro House complex said they had no hot water since mid-July and no gas since Sept. 4, per News 5 Cleveland. That outage followed an Aug. 21 notice from Enbridge stating the landlord had not paid the building's gas bill. One resident there resorted to boiling water on a single hot plate for both bathing and cooking.
What Tenants Can Do
Oklahoma law does address situations where a landlord fails to supply essential services. Under Title 41 of the Oklahoma Statutes, when a landlord willfully or negligently fails to supply heat, running water, hot water, electric, gas or another essential service required by the rental agreement or by law, a tenant may give notice, though the available statutory excerpt does not spell out the full remedy or every condition that applies. Residents with ongoing utility complaints can also contact the Oklahoma Corporation Commission's Consumer Services Group, which investigates and mediates complaints involving regulated public utilities and handles some field safety enforcement, though it's not documented whether any complaint has been filed in connection with Manchester on May.
For now, Oliver and her neighbors are left waiting, cooking what they can without a stove and managing without hot water, as Oklahoma Natural Gas works through the inspection process it says is required before anyone's gas comes back on.
