Apartment complex says issue with residents who don't have power nearing resolution

You can see disconnected cables outside one of the buildings. It represents more than month without power for some residents. The ordeal has impacted dozens of units at the apartment complex on Wade Avenue.

The owners are now saying power will be restored by the end of this week, which will have been five weeks since the apartments went dark. The apartment complex has 265 units. Of those, 44 have been without electricity. Residents told WRAL they're not confident the lights are coming on anytime soon.

None of the three residents who spoke with us wanted to appear on camera or give their full names. One tenant, who we'll call Mary, paid $1,300 a month in rent. She said she had enough of the not-knowing and moved out of Oberlin Court apartments this past weekend.

"I just want somewhere to live that I know I can stay until it's over, not that I'm bouncing around everywhere," she said.

Residents at Raleigh apartment complex perplexed why power has been out for nearly 3 weeks

"Now we're five weeks out and I've spent like $2,500," she said.

It's money she hopes will be fully reimbursed by the owners of Oberlin Court. In a recent statement to WRAL, Oberlin Court LLC says the culprit was failure in the building's main breaker cut the power, and that the "custom fabrication of the electrical components" is causing repairs to take longer than expected.

In short, the parts had to be manufactured, not simply ordered.

In the statement sent to WRAL on Tuesday, the apartment owners say: "The custom equipment required to complete the repairs arrived today, and notwithstanding any unforeseen circumstances, our contractors expect that they will compete repairs by the end of this week."

"Every week we've been told we can move in," another tenant said. "And then they call us the day before and say it's gonna be another week, it's gonna be another week. So I don't have much hope that we're gonna be back in on Friday."

The owners said they will continue to provide hotel rooms for residents and give them rent credit for their time away. Another resident, also at a hotel, plans to move back in when the lights are back on.

"I just want to be able to go home and know that this isn't gonna happen again and also feel like I'm going to be fairly compensated for the time nd expenses," the tenant said.

We talked with the Raleigh fire marshal's office Tuesday and were told the apartment complex has not been cited with anything. A spokesman said nobody is allowed to live in the units while electricity is out, though residents are allowed to come by as needed.

The apartment owners say they are providing residents with "additional compensation," but they didn't provide any details.