SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - A handful of Northland trailer park residents were without water from Feb. 22 to 28, says resident Darryl Sweetman.

One of the main lines in the park froze because the water was shut off for four hours last week.

Sweetman's mother-in-law was one of the residents without water for nearly a week. She did not comment, but Sweetman was livid.

"If it was me, I'd just come unglued," he exclaimed.

Employees of Pick's Steam were fixing the pipes at Sweetman's mother-in-law's home on Catalina Drive on Monday afternoon. They ran a temporary water line to her home.

"It is what it is, we're going to get it fixed," said Wade Friesen, the vice-president of the condominium corporation.

Park manager Mike Roy, who was at the scene of the water main break, said he is fed up with the negative coverage in the media about the infrastructure problems in the park.

"This is nothing new," he said, gesturing to the water line. "It happens in the city too."

Sweetman doesn't believe that, and maintains the people in Northland have extremely poor service compared to residents elsewhere.

"There's nobody in the city that goes without water for more than three days," he said.

Last week, Sweetman's mother-in-law had to share his washroom. He tried to bring buckets of water over to her house so that she could flush the toilet, but the lines were so frozen it was futile. He said it was quite embarrassing for her.

"You just can't do that to a 70-year-old lady," he said.

Friesen said there is a group of residents in the park affected by the latest water problems.

"It's unfortunate that people are without water for so long, but it's not just this one person," he said, adding that he won't know further details until the trailer park manager writes a report.

Roy added that people all over the city, not just in Northland, will see more frozen pipes because of the below average snowfall this winter.

"You have no snow, you have no insulation," he said.

In December, another water problem caused flooding to Sweetman's own front lawn on Catalina Drive. The lawn is still covered in ice. He said all that accumulated ice has caused his entire home to shift, destroying the skirting and said he's worried that it will "break in half" come spring time.

"This is just getting to be a constant thing," he said.

He also complains of sewage bubbling up in his backyard, the stench of which he puts up with in the summer.

"It's just rank," he said. "I want to be out of here so bad. Yellowknife is not a place for people to live."

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