After 6 days without running water, end in sight for Lincoln mini-home park

Residents of a mini-home park in the Fredericton area spent the holidays without running water — an outage that persisted for six days.

It isn't the first time Tamarack Estates in Lincoln has seen water issues, said Lacey Phillips , who has lived in the park for eight years. She says this latest problem is "par for the course." 

"It's just absolutely unbelievable, and any communication has been one sided," said Phillips.

"Imagine it's Christmas morning, you cannot make a cup of coffee, you can't run clothes through the washer, you know, you can't wash your hands after opening all your gifts and handling all this stuff before you make dinner."

Late Wednesday afternoon, the park's owner, Toronto-based Canadian Apartment Properties REIT, said water service "is now being reintroduced" to the community and that they are optimistic that full services will "soon be returned," but did not specify a time.

The statement went on to say that CAPREIT will implement "additional system improvements" to make sure the issue does not happen again, but did not specify what improvements it would make. 

The statement did not address a question from CBC News about whether residents will get a discount on this month's lot fees because of the outage.

The outage at the park began on Dec. 22. Later that day, a boil water notice was posted that had people optimistic the water would be back soon, said Phillips.

But it was clear this wouldn't be the case two days later, when crews set up taps attached to pump houses, she said. 

In a notice sent to residents, management warned individuals to boil the water because "your jugs or other transportation means may not be sterile and we want to prevent any sickness over the holidays."

The message did not say if the water was safe for drinking, but residents told CBC News that the water coming from the taps was "grey water," which is generated wastewater that doesn't include fecal contamination. 

Four days later, on Wednesday, another note was issued to residents advising them that a company would be on site providing water they could drink safely.

In an emailed statement to CBC News, Canadian Apartment Properties said it was "working diligently with our consultants to understand the source of the issue and make all necessary repairs."

The statement said management "will compensate residents who incur costs associated with securing additional sources of water."