Roof in a Fix, Tenants Get Rained Out
Forty residents of an Athens-area apartment building were rousted from their beds in the middle of the night and left temporarily homeless early Friday, when heavy rains poured through unfinished roof repairs and caused extensive flooding and damage.
The tenants had complained about the conditions for weeks, and the latest storm finally caught officials’ attention. It was too late, however, for the residents to celebrate Christmas at home and keep their holiday gifts from getting soaked.
County officials were working to find accommodations for the mostly low-income tenants -- many of them women and young children -- until repairs at the building in the 1400 block of West 105th Street can be completed, possibly as long as a month.
And because some of the residents do not own cars, they will be without transportation to jobs.
Shirley Flemings said she first noticed dripping about 11 p.m. the previous evening. She awoke at 2 a.m. with rain pouring into her upstairs bedroom from cracks in the ceiling, windows and light sockets.
“I heard neighbors slamming doors and shouting,” said Flemings, a mother of two who has lived in the building for three years. “We stood outside because it was raining more inside the building. We made coffee and tried to comfort each other.”
There has been little cheer in this holiday season for the waterlogged tenants. The flooding Friday is the latest in a series of misfortunes related to extensive roofing and plumbing repairs that began before Thanksgiving. Tenants say previous wet weather caused flooding that left fungus and mushrooms growing from the carpets, soaked beds and couches and soggy Christmas trees.
Despite complaints, county health and housing officials previously had said that the building repairs would not require the tenants to relocate. After Friday’s rains, though, fire officials determined that water pouring through electrical outlets posed a safety hazard.
County officials now say they will cite the building’s owner for health and safety code violations.
“The units are completely flooded,” said Los Angeles County environmental health specialist Scott Abbott, who inspected the building. “The wall materials, carpeting, floors are completely saturated. Every tenant’s personal belongings are damaged as well as the structure. The owner will have to take steps to eliminate mold growth and hazards due to lead paint before it can be reoccupied.”
Building owner Nancy Wilson, a Las Vegas resident, defended her own efforts and those of the contractors.
“I’m trying to do a good thing, I’m trying to better the place for people to live,” Wilson said in a phone conversation. “I wanted my tenants to have a perfect apartment complex to live in before Christmas, that was my goal. Who knew it was going to storm? Those workers were up there at 2 in the morning to make sure stuff wouldn’t get wet.”
Wilson received a $205,000 federal rehabilitation loan through the county Community Development Commission for the renovations, said commission spokesman Calvin Naito.
Workers began tearing up the roof early last month, but discovered damage in its interior layers, said Kishore “Kevin” Kaul, owner of the Brea-based contracting firm KDMG. Kaul said his firm offered to relocate tenants early in the week, but told them they would have to pay for hotel rooms and be reimbursed. Only two tenants took him up on the offer, he said.
On Thursday, workers struggled late into the evening to put up a layer of fiberglass and plastic tarps in anticipation of the coming storm, said Kaul.
“We put up 12,000 square feet of material, and we thought it would hold,” he said.
By midday Friday, tenants, many who had not slept all night, were still trying to retrieve personal belongings that were not drenched.
Shameka Foster was taking stock of the damage: a computer too soaked to even try to turn on, furniture drenched through to its stuffing, nearly all of her children’s clothing wet.
A bookkeeper who was able to take Friday off, she worried most about how the disruption would affect her children, 9-year-old Tyler, 2 1/2-year-old Marquesha and especially 2-month-old son Terron.
“He’s brand new and doesn’t know what’s going on,” said Foster. ‘It’s my baby’s first Christmas, and this has messed that all up.”
Sheila Rice, mother of two girls, one age 5 and the other 10 months old, was almost in tears wondering what she would do with her third baby -- 6-month-old house cat Smokey.
“I can’t sit up and worry about him when I have to take care of my kids,” said Rice, snuggling Smokey. “I guess I’ll try to find someone in the neighborhood to give him to. It’s going to be hard, though, because we don’t know how long we’ll have to be gone.”
