BUFFALO, N.Y. — After an off campus apartment building housing mostly Buffalo State College students was damaged during the recent blizzard, tenants contacted 2 On Your Side to say they are upset with the response by management and that they have concerns for their safety.
Building #1 at the Monarch 716 Apartments at Forest and West Avenues sustained an apparent burst pipe on an upper floor early on Christmas.
Water everywhere
"All hell broke loose, basically," said Farida Hosaini, whose apartment that she shares with two other renters, had subsequent water damage.
Another tenant who lives in the same apartment, but who wished not to have her name published, said help was hard to come by with the blizzard just subsiding when the incident occurred.
"The fire department couldn't get to us on time, and we didn't have anybody from maintenance able to get here, so all the students were just flooded," she said. "We did lose a significant amount of stuff. I had to throw out a bunch of different items."
On Thursday a steady stream of workers from an emergency repair and restoration firm could be seen removing sections of dry wall and other materials from the building, and placing those materials into two large dumpsters outside.
Samuel Roma also lives here, and she says the water was ankle deep at one point.
"My ceiling was torn apart," said Roma, as he walked down a corridor toward his second floor apartment where the walls were bereft of dry wall, amid the hum of fans and other devices deployed to try and dry the building out.
Frustration flows like water
"They told us over the phone just the other day that there is mold in the building, but it's at safe enough levels so that it is not harmful to us to breath," Roma said.
"But I don't know what a 'safe level' of mold is for my lungs," he said skeptically, while gesturing toward the workers who were wearing masks.
While tenants have been allowed to stay in their apartments while the work continues, some believe it is not safe to do so. They also expressed frustration with the response by management thus far.
"We can't live in there," Hosaini said. "And they didn't even offer us a temporary place to stay until this is fixed. It's been 11 days ... and they're just saying go find a place or to live go find someone to stay with."
Adding to her frustration was the abrupt cancellation of a meeting with tenants that had been scheduled for Wednesday.
"They canceled it 15 minutes prior to when it was supposed to start," said Hosaini, who said she drove over an hour from where she has been staying at her parents home in Rochester in order to attend.
"And then they wouldn't speak to us. When we went inside to see the leasing manager, they did not want to speak to us."
Tenants say they won't be satisfied until repairs are fully made and they are assured their apartments are safe from mold or other potential hazards.
In addition, some hope to be reimbursed a portion of their rent and to be compensated for the loss of any belongings.
Still waiting
On Thursday morning 2 On Your Side visited the office at Monarch 716, where a manager told us she was not authorized to speak about the matter, but took our our contact information and said we could expect to hear from a regional manager.
However, as of Thursday evening we had yet to hear back from anyone.
Fifteen months ago, following an investigation by the NY State Attorney General's office, Monarch 716 had to pay $65,000 restitution, cancel $200,000 in tenant debt, and pay a $50,000 civil penalty for what the Attorney General described as deceptive leasing practices.