LEWISTON (WGME) -- A family in Lewiston is about to lose their rental house, and they have nowhere else to go.
Lewiston code enforcement officers say they have no choice but to condemn the home.
It is illegal in Maine to rent out a property without a working heating system. Carol Bennett and her family say they moved into a home on Stetson Road in July but Wednesday, they might be forced out.
“We’re looking at possibly sleeping in our cars,” Lewiston resident David Roach said.
It’s been about two months since Lewiston code enforcement said they were going to condemn the house.
Both the city and the Bennetts have struggled to contact the landlord, John Gray, to see if he plans to make the repairs to the home.
With cold weather, they’ve been running space heaters and five-gallon K-1 heaters.
“It’s been cold,” Carol Bennett said.
“Once the K-1 heater goes out, when you’re upstairs, that’s it,” Roach said. “You’re waking up and you’re seeing your breath first thing in the morning.”
A severe housing crunch has also made it nearly impossible to find somewhere new.
“We’re the people that were taken advantage of,” Roach said. “We’re getting soaked financially. Just trying to get out of this situation. The fact that we can’t find a place to live because the housing market is such a disaster right now is beyond me.”
The family hired a lawyer to hopefully delay the condemnation of the building.
They’re hoping to learn more by Wednesday’s deadline.
“We’re praying for that right now, because right now, I mean as of tomorrow, we don’t have a place to pack up and move to,” Roach said. “So we’re either completely homeless or they help us out.”
They’re also planning to sue the landlord to recoup the thousands of dollars they say they’ve lost.
“The money that we paid him and the repairs that had to be done, what we’ve done to get this house livable,” Lewiston resident Chris Bennett said. “We’re out a big sum of money, over $10,000.”
CBS13 tried calling Gray Tuesday afternoon. There was no answer.