KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A heated battle is brewing between a KC mom and her landlord.
Last July, Malekia Morton moved into a Section 8 house near 55th and Tracy Avenue in Kansas City, excited to make a fresh start for herself, her 11-year-old son and her 3-year-old daughter.
However, within a few months: “It just seems like everything started leaking,” Morton said.
She said the place she had hoped to turn into her dream home became a leaking nightmare.
“The pipe under my kitchen sink links every time I turn on the faucet. My toilet leaks onto the floor every time we flush it. The basement floods. It smells like mold when you go down there, and also the sewer is backing up,” she said.
Morton also said last winter the ceiling in her daughter’s bedroom buckled after water seeped through it, and last week during a big storm she said water filled parts of the ceiling in her bedroom.
“It was a big hole in a corner of the ceiling and then there were dry marks from the rain. My biggest fear is that the roof is going to collapse. I just feel like it’s unsafe for my kids,” the KC mom said.
Morton has run out of patience with her landlord, Ernest Obasi.
FOX4’s Robert Townsend spoke to Obasi and Morton as they argued in Morton’s basement.
“There’s no flood here,” Obasi said.
Obasi insists water is not flooding Morton’s basement nor leaking from her ceilings because he said he had a roof put on the home recently.
“A brand new roof. This roof is not even two months old,” Obasi said.
Obasi also says last ween a plumber checked out Morton’s sewer.
“The plumber told me there’s nothing to fix, so I don’t believe water is backing up in her basement,” the furious landlord said.
“The water is backing up. You can see puddles are all over my basement. If he had a new roof put on my house, then it should not still be leaking,” said Morton, who’s begun packing up.
“I want him to fix his repairs, but when my lease is up in July, I am moving,” Morton said.
On Friday a city inspector will inspect the family’s home. A city spokesman said right now it’s too early to say if the landlord will face any citations.
