'Vermin, rodents, mold, break-ins': Tenants at downtown Oakland high-rise go on rent strike
OAKLAND (KPIX) -- Tenants of a high-rise apartment building in downtown Oakland held a rally Tuesday night, to show they've had enough with their living conditions and are going to stop paying rent until the problems have been fixed. The residents say the building is unsanitary and unsafe to live in and it was time to take action.
"We recently had issues with vermin, rodents, security, break-ins, mold," said tenant Monty Joyce.
Another tenant Alexandra Yuro-May added, "Most recently, we've experienced rodent infestations to the 11th floor of the building, we've experienced mold and sewage seeping through floors."
Alameda County Vector Control did come out to the property. It found rodent droppings in the crawl space and identified access points on the exterior of the building.
The residents also claim the only two elevators in this 18-story building were out of service for roughly 24 hours.
"Finally people started getting fed up," said Joyce. "We decided to organize back in July. We came together and put together a demand letter for the owner of the building and said hey, if our demands aren't met by this date, we're going to go on a rent strike."
The residents say conditions at Merritt on 3rd have been slowly deteriorating for years and the building recently went through an ownership change. They hope that a united effort among some of the residents will force management to meet their demands.
"We're really kind of joining a wave that's going on right now with people trying to organize and demand things that should be our right," said Joyce.
KPIX has reached out to Trinity Property Consultants for comment, but still have not heard back.