MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Month after month, tenants at the Latham Heights apartments have watched a growing mass of garbage overflowing from their dumpsters go from bad to horrifying.
On Tuesday, concerned citizen and President of the Lauderdale Sub Neighborhood Association Kermit Moore reached out to ABC24 to see what it would take to finally get rid of the waste.
“I know people that live here,” he said. “I came by the other day and I saw [the garbage], and it was deplorable.”
Moore says his friends living at the apartment complex at 340 South Parkway are afraid speaking out will make it worse, so he spoke on their behalf.
“Most people who are in this condition are afraid of retaliation if they speak against their landlords,” he said.
Most of the tenants ABC24 spoke to gave similar answers when asked what it was like living somewhere in such a state of apparent neglect.
The few who agreed to discuss their living condition on-camera wished to remain anonymous.
“You see the trash doesn’t get emptied," one man said. "There’s no service to the grounds, and when stuff gets broke in the apartment, it doesn't get fixed.”
That tenant also said he doesn’t even know how to contact the new landlord, who took over in March.
“[I] don’t have her new number,” he said. “She changed her number on us. She just comes over when she still collects rent — from the one’s she still collect rent from — and she doesn’t do anything else. She just leaves.”
Another resident said that when they are able to reach the landlord, she can be confrontational.
“You contact her — she gives you attitude,” the woman said.
The apartment’s dumpsters are maintained by Waste Connections of Tennessee. ABC24 got in contact with District Sales Manager Patrick Hough who said in a statement that the growing trash piles are the result of “the actions of the ownership/management group at Latham Heights.”
Hough says some of the services they offered Latham Heights have been discontinued due to lack of payment and that it is up to property management to contact them for waste removal.
Here is the full statement from Hough:
“What I can share with you at this time is that the trash accumulation at this location is not a result of any Waste Connection activity or operational challenge but the actions of the ownership/management group at Latham Heights.
Some of the services Waste Connections provides have been discontinued to lack of payment and what remains requires us to be instructed by Latham Heights to service. To date we have not received any notification to do so.
Until the property management instructs us and provides clear access to service our equipment, we will not be able to provide waste removal services. We are reaching out to the ownership to facilitate this recovery.”
- Patrick Hough, Waste Connections Memphis
Renters say it’s just one more basic need they are still waiting to get back.
“[The landlord] said that she would send somebody out about our heaters,” the female renter said. “The person she sent out hasn’t made in out here yet. She has sent a man out here to de-clog our sewage which, he also walked out here to see what the problem was, and he said that the problem was bigger than him, and we have not heard anything else back about that either.”
The simple question these tenants have for their landlord is: "Why?"
“You pull up in nice cars … you take trips, and we see this all on Facebook, but when we contact you about the condition we’re in, we get nothing,” the same woman tenant said.
ABC24 contacted the landlord Thursday night and spoke briefly with her but she chose to give no comment.
She said that property owner Memphis Partners NY LLC, based in Brooklyn, New York, would email a statement in 24 hours.
ABC24 has not received the statement at this time.
“We need her to answer to somebody because we sure can’t get her to answer to us,” the male tenant said.
The City of Memphis is working to schedule a time for city code enforcement to visit the property. Memphis residents having problems with trash pickup can contact the city by calling 311.