We Appreciate Everyone’s Patience During The Recent Series Of Elevator Problems We’ve Had

Particularly in September with Elevator 5 and most recently Elevator 6 – both Freight Elevators which serve all floors. We know many residents rely on these elevators to get to and from the Garage and Laundry Facility.

In both cases door operator malfunctions were observed, and electric boards serving the door operators failed. This could be a coincidence, but the team at OTIS has said this could also be from misuse. The likely cause is riders forcibly opening doors or holding the doors open. And we have had failures such as this in the past where we were able to confirm abuse via recorded surveillance.

In this case we don’t have exact dates and times of events where we can confirm any bad behavior. However, we do want to use this as an opportunity to remind everyone not to push doors open or to hold them physically with your arms or feet. If you need to hold a door open temporarily, use the button for that purpose.

If you need to hold the door open for a more lengthy period, such as for a large delivery or work in your unit, then you should consider making a reservation or at the very least consulting with the management team. parktowercondo-mgmt@habitat.com

Holding the door open physically can trigger a safety that will force the elevator out of service. Forcing the door to open or pushing it with your hands and feet when it is in operation, can cause failures and damage. Sometimes serious damage.

Of course it’s also worth mentioning, when someone is holding the doors it is creating a delay for everyone else waiting for the elevator.

In one case many years ago, an inebriated resident was holding open a passenger elevator door, and falling over and pushing it with her feet to keep it open (while waiting for other people coming down the hall). This resulted in almost $4000 in damage to the door operator and board and led to a lengthy outage while parts had to be ordered for repair. The cost of the damage was assessed to the Unit Owner.

So please keep this in mind as you are coming and going – don’t physically hold the elevator doors or force them open in any way.