[Elsie]

although the residents had been asking the city for weeks to replace the bulb.

How many 'residents' does it take to replace a light bulb?

[livius]

I said they could probably have replaced the lightbulb themselves, although possibly not, because it may have been too high to reach without a long ladder or locked into a cage to protect it from being broken by people who wanted to use the stairwell for crime.