CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Jamarria Brice has spent much of January dealing with a chilly nightmare, wondering if her apartment will be warm enough to comfortably live in it.
"It's been very hard," Brice said.
She got in touch with WCNC Charlotte, asking for help after she said management at her apartment complex wasn't working quickly enough to fix a broken heater.
"We've been having this extremely cold weather," she said, explaining how cold it's gotten inside her apartment, much like the weather outside.
She lives at the Charlotte 360 apartments off of Forestbrook Drive in West Charlotte.
She said she's been dealing with no heat -- and virtually no power -- for days.
"No heat, no lights, no hot water, no stove, no oven," she said.
It started at the beginning of the month when her breaker broke, she said. She told WCNC Charlotte the complex came out to fix it, but days later it broke again.
Due to the cold temperatures inside her apartment, and what she said was lack of action by the complex, she's been living in a hotel at her own expense.
"I was told by the rent office that they won't put me in a hotel," Brice said.
Inside her apartment on Friday, her thermostat read 53 degrees. With the coldest temperatures this winter expected by nightfall, she got worried.
"It is a living hazard," she said.
WCNC Charlotte reached out to the apartment complex. They said there were communication issues trying to reach Brice and that they had the wrong number on file when they tried reaching out to her.
The complex added it was an issue that Duke Energy would need to fix.
Minutes after WCNC Charlotte reached out to the Charlotte 360, a crew with Duke Energy was at Brice's apartment replacing a broken meter.
"I feel like it should have been something that was done quickly or faster," Brice said, noting the looming cold temperatures that would plunge to the 20s and teens just hours after the fix.
Her power and heat are back on, but she hopes it's a permanent fix.
Charlotte 360 declined an interview and did not want to comment further on the matter.
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Contact Hunter Sáenz at hsaenz@wcnc.com and follow him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.