The response of a care home group to elderly residents was a lot slower than the lightning strike which left many of them stranded.
Betty Dodd Court, on Grange Road, was struck by lightning on the night of Friday, July 3.
The strike caused a power cut to the building, affecting the lifts, television and phone receptions.
One resident told Luton News: “The lifts have been out of order and some people old and very disabled are stuck upstairs unable to get out.
“Some have no TV, some have no phone, BPHA (Bedford Pilgrims Housing Association) have not even been round to tell us what’s going on or when it will be fixed.
“They are just very, very slow at doing anything and don’t seem to care. Theyshould not be running this facility many of us say.”
A letter sent to residents from BPHA explained that the company outsourced for maintenance did not have the parts to fix the lifts.
At a visit to the home on Friday, July 10, the lifts were still broken with many of the residents left stranded on their floors.
One resident was forced to cancel a trip to Southend-on-Sea as she was unable to leave the floor of her room.
Another told Luton News: “It’s disgusting, we don’t know when they’re getting fixed.”
One of the lifts was fixed later on Friday, after parts arrived from Germany.
Bob Hopkins, head of property services at BPHA, said: “We would like to apologise to the residents of Betty Dodd Court for disruption from the unexpected storm on July 3.
“As a result of the storm we did experience electrical issues. We worked to resolve these as quickly as possible.
“This included fast-tracking orders for parts, repairing one of the broken lifts and ensuring that TV/radio aerials and phone lines were back up and running within days.
“One of our registered contractors will be repairing the security camera and the one remaining malfunctioning lift this week.
“We visited every resident to personally apologise for the inconvenience caused.”