MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Residents at The View at Shelby Farms apartment complex are still dealing with issues into the new week as units still are not up to the standards residents want to see.
Cherilyn Allen Stewart is the mother of a resident, Brea, who’s dealing with issues first-hand while looking after her kids who can no longer live in the unit.
Stewart said the good news is that the regional property manager has been in touch with her and ordered contractors to fix some of the issues, but the bad news is that some of these issues are not being properly fixed.
“I immediately reached out to Chris and I told him how disheartening that was and how upset I was because they were trying to hide mold in the wall behind the sheetrock,” Stewart said.
She said the person who came to fix the mold growing underneath their kitchen sink didn’t replace the molded wood — instead they poured a solution on top to kill the mold.
With issues in numerous places, lots of different repairs must be done before the family says they’ll feel comfortable moving back in.
“Their maintenance team — we did a walk through. I took pictures, they told me that they would take care of that, so as I was watching the contractors pull the wall out, and they pulled out all of this mold-infested black insulation out the wall," Stewart said. "Then they stuffed it back in the wall. I said 'are you not gonna replace it?'”
She said the apartment has offered them $800 back for having to deal with these issues. Still, she won’t be satisfied until all the repairs are done and mold tests are completed afterwards.
“Legally, we shouldn’t have paid any rent for six months,” Stewart said. “Because nothing has been repaired from the time he moved in up until today and then you’re still cutting corners; you’re still trying to get over, you’re still doing things that can affect the health of my daughter and my grandchildren.”
“[The property manager is] not gonna pay the rent he said because then you get into the Fair Housing Law, and if he gave me rent free and other people had problems, he would have to give everybody else free rent so he gave me the $800 concession based on all the things that we’ve gone through for the last six months.”
Stewart said although the regional property manager has been responsive over the recent few days, she is not sure what to do next since the contractors hired by management are not properly repairing the unit.
“I don’t know what the next move is,” she said. “I did share with him that I want to be present when they do test for mold, and when those results come back because I don’t trust the contractors at this point.”
ABC24 has reached out to property management and have not heard back but will continue to stay on top of this story as we wait to hear from them.