RUMFORD – Two of three tenants ordered to vacate their Prospect Avenue apartments last month by selectmen trying to force their landlord to fix code violations, aren’t budging, they say. The third was unavailable for comment.

Since getting the 30-day ultimatum on Oct. 2, the lives of Alton and Stacy Steward and their two children and Ed and Stacy Hoyt and their four children have been wrenched upside down.

They say they’ve been unable to find anything decent for less than $1,300, because landlords they’ve called want a hefty security deposit and first month’s rent.

“This is one of the best apartments we’ve had since we’ve been married for 14 years and now we’re expected to go from this to something a lot worse and falling down, and in a drug-infested area?” Stacy Steward asked two days after learning about the eviction notice on Oct. 5.

“They can’t just take us out in the winter time,” Alton Steward said. “Thirty days? I’m sorry, that’s just not enough time. I don’t have $1,300.”

The Stewards have lived on the first floor of landlord Brian O’Keefe’s building for 14 months. They moved from a Maine Avenue apartment, because they couldn’t afford to pay both heat and rent.

Both work in the planer mill at Hancock Lumber in Bethel. For the past four years, Stacy Steward has also coached gymnastics at the Greater Rumford Community Center.

“My kids are devastated, and I don’t know what to do,” Stacy Hoyt said. “This is a nice apartment. It’s very spacious for my kids. It’s a nice neighborhood and we’re going to have to move from a really nice place to something that’s got cockroaches or more code violations? The biggest prospect is a dump. It’s gross.”

Ed Hoyt drives truck for developers Rick and Ron Savage in Bethel. In September, he took a week of vacation off to move his family from Bryant Pond – where they couldn’t afford to pay both rent and heat – to O’Keefe’s building. He can’t take more time off to move the family again.

“It’s wintertime. Why can’t they live here through the winter? No landlord is supposed to kick you out in the wintertime,” Amy Howes, Stacy Hoyt’s sister said.

“To displace three families with children in this economic time with winter coming is just ridiculous,” Roland Laliberty Sr., Stacy Steward’s father, said.

“I don’t think it’s right what they’re doing. If they make a decision evicting us, they should at least have the decency to come over here and look at it, and then look at what we’d have to move into,” Stacy Steward said.

Selectmen have no beef with the tenants. They just want O’Keefe to remedy code violations, the most serious of which involve no second means of escape from one window each on the upper floors and the lack of a second egress on the third floor.

Other serious violations cited by town officials include stairs at the rear of the building not built to code, faulty stairs and stair rails ready to fall off, and the lack of hard-wired smoke detectors in right locations.

Additionally, code enforcement officer Rich Kent, fire Chief Gary Wentzell and selectmen say O’Keefe had more than a year to get the work done or file a plan of correction, but did neither.

Because town officials have been aware of the violations for more than a year, they worry they could be held liable should someone die in a fire at the building.

“If someone burns to death on the third floor, lawsuits are going to start and it will be a domino effect right down through all town officials,” Wentzell said.

O’Keefe and his tenants claim he has done more than $20,000 worth of fixing violations, but can’t find any area carpenters willing to fix the more serious issues.

The building has new doors, energy efficient windows, water heaters and a sprinkler system over the boiler, fire extinguishers, and more.

“Their building is much nicer than other buildings in town,” Kent said. “I definitely wouldn’t put it on a demolition list, but that doesn’t mean it’s safe.”