Apartment complex faces code violations

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Apartment complex faces code violations

Clarion Ledger - ,MS,

By Kathleen Baydala

kbaydala@...

Vickie D. King/The Clarion-Ledger

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?

AID=/20070511/NEWS/705110364/1001/news

Westwick Apartments near Flag Chapel Road is among the federally

subsidized apartment complexes in to come under scrutiny.

Code enforcement officers are keeping an eye on the 25-building

complex.

code enforcement officers Jerome and Younger

looked on sympathetically as Westwick Apartments resident Samoria

Simpson rattled off a list of problems with her home in Apartment 3M.

The toilet backs up; you have to flush at least twice. There's mold

in the closet. The doors won't shut completely because the walls

have cracked and shifted.

The two men worked in tandem, writing down her complaints on a legal

pad and taking pictures of the damage with a hand-held digital

camera.

's Community Improvement Division, which handles cases of

housing code violations, has been keeping an eye on the 25-building

complex off Flag Chapel Road.

" Cases of occupied housing with code violations are treated with

priority, " Division Director Joe said.

Some of the city's code-enforcement officers took a break from

tagging vacant, dilapidated houses in the Farish Street neighborhood

to canvass the apartment complex on Wednesday and Thursday.

Simpson, 22, has lived in her two-bedroom unit for about two years

and pays $211 a month. She's between jobs now, so she needs

affordable rent.

But she's also worried the apartment's conditions could hurt her

children. Mold has been linked to respiratory problems, especially

in the very young and the elderly.

Simpson said she called the city because she felt management was not

responding. " Dealing with them, you have to ask three, four, five

times before they give you a number to call to get stuff fixed, " she

said.

Josh Mandell, the apartments' attorney, said the company has not

received anything in writing from the city regarding the problems

documented on Wednesday and Thursday.

However, management did receive reports of sewage back-up Saturday

and had a plumbing company and a carpet cleaning service on premises

that same day.

" Whenever a problem is reported to management, the management acts

swiftly and acts promptly, " Mandell said.

Several of the tenants were temporarily relocated to a motel, while

the carpet was being sanitized.

Kenyatta , 17, said her family has experienced the same

problems that Simpson has. Mold is growing in the walls of her

mother's bedroom in Apartment 2O. She said she and her mother have

requested repairs from apartment management for a couple of years.

" They just now came in and cut this part (of a wall) out, " Kenyatta

said. " Before that they just took some white paint and put it

over the mold, but it's all in that wall. "

Management officials at Westwick would not comment on the problems,

referring questions to the company that owns the complex, Summit

Asset Management in Montgomery. Messages left Thursday afternoon for

the company's president, Blake Brazeal, and executive president,

, were not returned.

Mandell said company officials were not aware of any previous

complaints of mold or broken doors.

" When a resident reports some sort of maintenance issue to the

office at Westwick that issue is reviewed and then inspected and

repaired if needed, " he said.

Many of the residents' complaints on Thursday are similar to

problems documented previously by the U.S. Department of Housing and

Urban Development.

Westwick was last inspected by HUD in October 2006. Its score went

down slightly from 2005, when inspectors gave the complex a 64 of

100 and noted problems including exposed wires, rust, mold,

inoperable refrigerators, peeling paint and clogged drains.

Mandell said he could not respond to the HUD inspections because he

did not have those documents before him.

Westwick is not the only federally subsidized apartment complex to

come under scrutiny.

Manor, an apartment building near Baptist Medical Center,

has been cited by HUD for a variety of maintenance problems. In

addition, the building's elderly and disabled residents say they are

afraid to leave their apartments at night because drug dealers and

prostitutes use the lobby and hallways at night.

Manor is owned by the nonprofit Yazoo County Fair and Civic

League. Civic League officials say they do not have the money to

make repairs or provide security for residents.

Joe said Summit Asset Management or its managers will have 10

days to fix the nonemergency problems. Some will need immediate

action.

" We can take them to environmental court if they don't correct the

problems or we can condemn them and that's it, " he said.

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Staff writer Joyner contributed to this report.