Faced with mounting problems in their buildings, and with winter right around the corner, residents of a local apartment complex say they're worried about what the future holds.
As you read this story, hopefully, you're sitting at home, warm and dry, with no concerns about the incoming rain and cooler weather, but that's not the situation for about three dozen families. Those people live in the South Wayne Apartments on Harriet Street in Lockland. They tell us their problems include everything from hordes of bugs to a lack of heat.
Local 12's Rich Jaffe looked at the problems, and what's being done about them.
It's a story we're hearing more and more across the Tristate... absentee landlords who either don't have the money to fix up their properties or don't want to spend the money.
The 39 apartments at South Wayne are owned by J&K Enterprises out of California, and while the management company hired to run the place tells me they're aware of the problems and working on them, the real price is still being paid by the people who live here. The ceiling in this building looks like it's about to collapse due to a water leak, but the real story's inside the apartments. Residents say when the maintenance man recently dropped off space heaters, he told them it was because he'd been instructed not to turn on the old boilers that heat the buildings. Mary Brooks worries about her 85 year-old mom who lives here.
Mary Brooks, Daughter of Resident: "It's not enough heat for number one, and number two, it's dangerous for her... like the other day when it was cold, when I came in, my mom not only had this one on, she had that one on and she had the oven running."
Just upstairs, Mary Thomas has another problem.
Mary Thomas, Resident: "Every time I turn my oven on, for the last month, it knocks the electric off for the apartment, and I put in four or five calls to the office, but I never got to talk to nobody."
"Here at the South Wayne Apartments, heat is normally included with the rent, but if the boilers aren't working and all the residents have to use these space heaters, they have to plug them in to their own electric, which they pay for. One of the residents told me she was advised that each of the space heaters would cost another 30 or 40 dollars a month because of the electric it's using."
"I wouldn't be able to pay it.... WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO? I guess we'll do like we did last winter, we only had heat four or five weeks... They kept telling us something was wrong with the boiler."
Next door, for Sparkle Woods, the issue is roaches.
Sparkle Woods, Resident: "I mean they're everywhere, they're everywhere, the refrigerator, coming out of the drains, the faucets, carpet, everywhere, they even crawl on me when I sleep, that's disgusting."
I spoke this afternoon with the owner of the maintenance company that runs this place for the out of state owner. He tells me they're aware of all the problems we pointed out, and they're working on them. He told me exterminators are in here every two weeks...and they've been trying to figure out the electrical problem in Mary Thomas' apartment for a few weeks, even though she says she's never heard from anyone. As far as the boilers go, he tells me they're on, but don't work very well, so that's why the owner provided the space heaters.
I also contacted the Lockland building inspector, and he's going to see if his people can provide some assistance or incentive to get these problems fixed, before things get even worse.
The South Wayne Apartments are owned by a company called J&K Enterprises. It's a limited liability corporation. The owner of the management company tells us the owner lives in California.
