HONOLULU (KHON2) — It’s not easy for 79-year-old Ruth Ellis to walk up steep stairs in her building, and she is expected to walk up and down every night to simply use the bathroom.
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Ellis and other residents said the management of the building on Chinatown’s Smith Street locks a gate to the bathroom on her floor at night. She lives on the second floor and management only keeps access to the bathroom on the first and fourth floors.
“They’ve been locked I mean, you know at 10 p.m. or so they lock them up and they don’t open them up until the morning,” said Ellis. “You have to have a porta-potty in your room because you know you have to go in the middle of the night.”
Ellis said she is recovering from a broken hip and she walks with a cane. A couple of doors down, Shirley Garcia leaves each morning around 5 AM for dialysis treatment. She keeps a bucket of water in her room.
Garcia said, “I bring the water over here inside my room so I can wash my face because I cannot go to my dialysis before I wash my hands and wash my face.”