Rancho Cordova Apartment Tenants Sue Over Filthy Conditions
RANCHO CORDOVA (CBS13) — They're fed up with filth and they're filing a $10 million lawsuit to fight back.
Residents at Cordova Estates apartments say they've been going through the right channel's filing complaints with the city since 2009 and they're still living in filth. Right now it seems the only way to get results is to hit the owners where it hurts.
Tenants say they're living in a dump.
"The cockroaches are like everywhere," resident Itzel Medina told CBS13's Checkey Beckford on Tuesday. "The bedbugs bite you and leave stains."
"There's a bed bug there, there's one there, there's one there, there's one there," said a bug expert hired by attorney Robb Strom.
Strom hired a bug expert for a lawsuit against the apartment's owners on behalf of 97 tenants. They're asking for $10 million after being forced to live in what they call deplorable conditions.
Jessica Munoz was the first tenant to contact Strom after she says her son started getting rashes anytime he was in the apartment.
"My kids are constantly in the hospital over it, and I can't afford it," she said. "It's bad."
Munoz says apartment management has turned a blind eye. "They don't do nothing," she said.
When CBS13 visited the apartment manager's office she told us she wasn't feeling well.
Asked if complaints are being ignored, she said, "Um, I can't really tell you."
She also said she could not give out the owners' number.
But Rancho Cordova code enforcement and the city's new mayor did show up when CBS13 told them we were doing the story.
"Today we're doing a series of inspections to make sure the owners are being responsible owners," Mayor David Sander said.
Code enforcement says since 2009 officers have been to the apartments more than a half dozen times and written the place up for hundreds of violations. Code enforcement officer Kerry Simpson said a switch in ownership has resulted in new problems
A lot of them were fixed under the former manager," she said.
Now the city says it plans to fine the owners, and if things don't change, they could face even stiffer penalties.
But tenants say it's too little too late.
