Tenants in downtown Kansas City without water for days, say landlord & city were no help
Tenants at Quality Hill Towers in downtown Kansas City are fed up.
Residents at the building at 8th and Jefferson Street did not have water for several days over the holiday weekend. That’s on top of long-standing issues like rampant cockroaches and mice, bed bugs, leaking ceilings and other consistent plumbing problems.
Hell Woods, 24, moved into a studio with their cat Velociraptor (aka Meeper) last November. Since then, there have been so many roaches that Woods is scared to venture into the kitchen at night. Roach traps are filled with the dead bugs.
At times the shower has not worked, and the stove has been broken.
In the spring, there was a bed bug infestation. Woods’ employer told them not to return to their bookkeeping job until the bed bug problem had been taken care of, so they lost three weeks of income because it takes multiple rounds of treatments. Unable to pay rent, the landlord filed an eviction case. Woods won.
Conditions came to a head Saturday. Woods woke up and discovered they could not flush the toilet or brush their teeth. The water had been shut off to stop a leak on the main floor, where water had flooded a hallway leading to a stairwell and a shared laundry room. Leaks were also affecting about 20 units. But Woods said communication to inform tenants about what was happening was scant.
“Everybody’s really stressed out about it,” Woods said.
“We’re just at a loss on how to work with them in any reasonable way.”
Some residents who take the stairwell even though it may be slick don’t want to use the railings — a disclosure in their leases say lead-based paint was used on the railings.
Sentinel Real Estate Corporation owns the property and said in a statement that when it became aware of the leak in the hot water supply line, staff were immediately on site.
Woods said residents submitted over 40 complaints to the city’s Healthy Homes program on Sunday, but had not heard back as of Tuesday afternoon.
According to a city website, all the cases remained open as of Wednesday morning.
City spokeswoman Sherae Honeycutt said Wednesday afternoon that officials spoke with the property manager and district manager on a conference call Tuesday and that, “They are all hands-on-deck to correct the problems.”
Tenants facing long-standing problems unionize
In the past year, tenants in the building have submitted about two dozen other cases to the city for problems including pests, no heat and leaks that have led to flooded apartments.
Dylan Sullins, 28, has lived at the apartment complex for one year and two months. He’s also dealt with roaches as well as a broken shower drain and a refrigerator that did not work for a couple of months.
“It was a lot of ramen during that time,” Sullins said.
He and Woods have heard other horror stories from neighbors.
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A sister building down the street has had 40 311 complaints in the past year, including eight in the past week. Those included mice infestations, mold and structural issues. Several tenants noted management had not responded to their concerns for some time.
With the support of the citywide tenant union, KC Tenants, the three buildings unionized in April. In June, they sent Sentinel Real Estate Corporation a letter with demands. The New York City-based company “made some commitments,” but Woods said nothing has changed.
Sentinel said in a statement that it has “been working in good faith with residents at Quality Hill Towers throughout the summer to address issues relating to plumbing and pest control.”
According to their website, the company owns more than 28,000 apartment units in several states and internationally. It has 11 properties in Kansas City.
Gabe Coppage, an organizer with KC Tenants, said the city should be prioritizing the needs of the people living in Kansas City, but is instead focused on things like where the Royals stadium will be built.
“We shouldn’t have to be doing the city’s job,” he said, adding that the city should be doing more to enforce regulations.
Coppage said situations like the one at Quality Hill Towers show why tenant unions are needed and the power of neighbors coming together.
On Tuesday afternoon, a maintenance person said water had been partially restored. But water continued to fill a trash can in the main hallway and the floor was still soaked with a layer of water.
“Folks need help now,” Woods said.
Later Tuesday evening, Sentinel said the leak was repaired and the clean-up process was underway. Because of the holiday weekend, there were delays in completing the repairs, but impacted residents were offered hotel stays during the disruption.
Honeycutt, with the city, said additional maintenance staff from other properties was working on getting the violations addressed.
“Program staff was on-site yesterday and will have a heavy presence at the property until all cases are resolved,” she said.
Healthy Homes has recent invoices showing management is “aggressively treating the buildings for pests.”
The city, she added, has worked with the residents over the past months to install smoke detectors, fix plumbing issues and repair holes in the ceilings, walls and floors related to past complaints.
This story was originally published September 6, 2023 at 11:45 AM.
