NW Houston residents say stolen copper from utility box has caused monthslong safety issues

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- The National Center for Health Statistics estimates that nearly 73% of American adults live in households that only use wireless phones.

That means many of us no longer use landlines, but not everyone has cut the cord.

Two residents of Timbergrove Manor in northwest Houston recently reached out to ABC13 after months of no service from AT&T to their landlines.

"On June 19, I discovered I did not have landline service," Karen Wendler said. "I called and was told it would be repaired on June 23."

But that date has come and gone, and Wendler said it's still not fixed. Her neighbor said he's in the same situation.

"We thought this would be resolved pretty quickly," LK Herlong said. "It's not like Hurricane Ike hit and trees are down."

Wendler and Herlong have cell phones but said their security systems use their landlines to function properly.

Their alarms automatically call the authorities if triggered, but they currently don't have that capability due to the service outage. Wendler said the neighborhood's demographics also make it an issue.

"There are elderly people in our neighborhood who may not have cell phones," she said. "There's some original homeowners who still live here, and these homes were built in 1959 and 1960."

The neighbors said they've had to do all the information seeking themselves and that AT&T told them for two months that they had no records of an outage.

Wendler said they were recently told the cause of the issue was stolen copper from a nearby utility box, which AT&T confirmed to ABC13 in a statement Wednesday afternoon.

"We are currently working on repairs, and we appreciate our customers' patience," the statement read.

Wendler and Herlong added that AT&T has not waived their landline charges since the outage started.

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