By Jamil Donith Texas
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TEXAS The number of code cases since the storm is now nearing 30,000, and that’s just a few cities in Texas reporting.
What You Need To Know
Apartment damage cases have piled up while property owners make little progress
Tenants and housing advocates say the city isn’t doing enough to enforce
Austin Code Compliance said landlord-friendly laws get in the way
Aftermath from the February freeze is also revealing inequities and shortcomings in the systems designed to help renters with unsafe living conditions.
Barbara Salazar lost her entire apartment to storm damage.
“All the doors, the laundry door fall down,” Salazar said. “It was coming, water from the top to the bottom and it got all flooded.”
Ramon Palacios points out damage in his apartment. (Jamil Donith/Spectrum News 1)
The mold crisis: Storm damage causes mold problem in apartments, which current state and local laws don’t regulate By Jamil Donith Texas
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What You Need To Know
The Austin Code Department does not regulate mold or conduct mold inspections.
Texas doesn’t have any laws addressing landlord’s duties or liability in dealing with mold
A man living in the Mueller Flats says he s been dealing with mold issues since the February storm
It’s difficult to deal with because there are few state and local laws regulating mold.
KUT
Mueller Flats told Maria Rico it was ending her lease because of damage to her apartment caused by February s freeze. She had seven days to move out.
As Audrey Alvarez drove home from work Friday and past the electric gate of her apartment complex, her husband was on the phone, questioning her.
“OK, do you see anything by the trash cans?” Eric Limón asked. No, nothing.
Alvarez got to their building at the back of the complex and parked.
“Is there anything outside of where our steps are?” he asked. Nope.
She walked up the stairs to their apartment on the second floor.
Resident at Mueller Flats Apartments being forced out by management
Resident at Mueller Flats Apartments being forced out by management
Many residents say they are in unlivable situations following the ice storms but one resident said her apartment is livable and management is forcing her out.
AUSTIN, Texas - Residents at the Mueller Flats Apartments are facing mandatory evictions.
Alyssa Higgins said she experienced damage from the winter storm in February, but management never repaired her apartment. Now, nearly four months later, she said she is being told she has to move out. I was worried all weekend about how I’m gonna move, Higgins said.
KUT
Jenn Brown (left) helps Kristen Carpenter move out of her Round Rock apartment earlier this month. Carpenter s landlord terminated her lease because of property damage from the February winter storm.
The walls of Ann Marie Romero’s one-bedroom apartment in Northeast Austin are speckled with mold. She hasn’t lived there since mid-February, when pipes burst because of freezing temperatures, soaking much of her furniture and clothes.
Romero has been sleeping on friends’ sofas; this week she’ll tally her fifth couch in two months.
“I’m still very much living in survival mode,” she said Saturday, as a group of her fellow tenants gathered in protest outside their apartment complex, Mueller Flats. Residents say property managers have failed to make repairs or provide accommodations for nearly 200 renters living with mold on their walls and holes in their ceilings.