The former Eco Square Apartments and Buena Vista Apartments were bought out in November by new owners who renamed them Martin Park Apartments. Since then, renters say it has been nothing but a nightmare.
"There's a lot of families that live here and the other location. There's flooding, draining issues, just inhabitable conditions," says Jordan Payne.
Payne says, when the company first took over, they sent everyone letters introducing themselves, along with promises to update and invest in the properties.
The first 3 months, they did not have office or maintenance staff. Then in February, a new manager took over to get things up and running.
"In the midst of that, their rent box gets robbed. There's two locations, one here (west) and one on the east. We turned our rent in here money orders or whatever, then it was moved to the other office and that office was the one that got robbed. Low and behold around the same time, is when the old staff was heading out the door. Shortly after that, about a month ago we get notices on our door for a '10 day pay or quit ' which is saying we're behind such and such amount and we're not," Payne said.
Payne says many renters complained to management, they could not afford to repay the bill or that they were not going to do it. They were told to schedule an appointment with the property manager to discuss it. Others paid in fear they would be evicted.
"They won't answer the phones, you go to their office on the east side and they'll stand at the door and say go please go away we're in a meeting."
44News visited the leasing office, the door was locked, and a black sheet was covering the window. Our phone calls were not returned either.
Residents share their living conditions continue to decline, but they can not reach maintenance or emergency maintenance to fix things. Many, started using their own money to repair their units.
"Some people are having to dump sink water out of their back doors, inviting more rodents, pests, and bugs inside. We have a mice problem. Right now, mice can run whenever they want through the bottom of our front door. We don't live like that, we don't want to live like that."
The City of Evansville says the Evansville-Vanderburgh County building commission is involved. So far, 6 units have been inspected, resulting in $7,000 worth of citations.
We will continue to follow this developing story.
