Problems with apartment thermostats at an elderly residence remain unresolved this week in Gorham.

Some residents of Village Square, which is owned and managed by Avesta Housing, the largest nonprofit housing agency in Maine, are still complaining of heat problems – a week after Gorham Fire Inspector Russ Bearor ordered Avesta Housing to assess thermostats to determine if any were faulty.

“(It’s) pretty cold in here, but the thermostat reads in the 70s,” Doris Cameron, 69, a Village Square resident, said Tuesday.

The issue surfaced last week at Village Square after residents received a postcard from Avesta Housing threatening a $50 fine if the agency had to enter an apartment to close an open window.

Barbara Soloway, regional property manager for Avesta Housing, said the warning was aimed at heating conservation and preventing damage to the building by freezing pipes. Soloway said windows could be opened briefly for fresh air. The charge is still in effect, but the agency hadn’t charged anyone yet, she said.

A resident, Susan Rappold, said last week thermostats weren’t working properly and some residents at Village Square opened windows to cool apartments that were too hot. She said other elderly tenants needed more heat in apartments.

Soloway said a heating contractor had checked the thermostats in every apartment in December. She said that last Thursday and Friday, the contractor looked at thermostats in five apartments following complaints. She said two of the five thermostats were recalibrated or replaced, and the other three were found to be functioning properly.

Soloway said the agency spends $6,000 each year in preventive maintenance on the heating system, which is 10 years old, at Village Square. She said Avesta Housing provides repair request forms for tenants.

Cameron, who has resided there seven years, said no repairman had entered her apartment to check the thermostat since she has lived there. However, she said, she had not filed a recent complaint. “I didn’t bother to call them,” Cameron said. “What’s the sense in it?”

Her second-floor apartment is above an unheated space where Dumpsters are stored on the ground level. She said Tuesday a “wicked draft” comes in around a window frame. She said she had complained in the past.

“I’ve told them I’m cold in here but they’ve done nothing about it. I just lay on the couch and wrap up in a blanket,” Cameron said.

The thermostat in Cameron’s apartment is on a livingroom wall near her bedroom door. The thermostat was set on 75 Tuesday afternoon. Although the door was open, her bedroom was noticeably cooler than the living room. “In bed, I bundle up,” Cameron said.

Rappold, 62, said the thermostat in her apartment was adjusted Friday. She watched “on hands and knees” as a repairman worked after removing a cover over a utility panel in the hallway in conjunction with checking the thermostat in her apartment.

But, Rappold said, her apartment was still chilly. She believed thermostats in other apartments are also malfunctioning but believed others were too fearful to complain.

“I think something isn’t being set correctly,” she said.

Meanwhile, Bearor, the fire inspector, plans to return to the building this week.

Heat woes linger for elderly Gorham tenants