KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A woman who lives in a southeast Kansas City town home shares a wall with another unit that’s been vacant for months. The woman who lived next door was kicked out by the city in May, but neighbors say what was left behind is infesting their homes with roaches.
FOX 4 spoke with the city; they say they’ve been responding to cleanliness complaints at the now vacant home for years, but FOX 4 spoke with the homeowner next door who says they’re not doing enough.
“I had roaches. Roaches. Roaches everywhere. When I cook in my kitchen they are just everywhere,” homeowner Renee Bartee said.
Normally, Bartee says her kitchen is a place she finds peace, a labor of love while she cooks for her family. But now, her cabinets and counters have become home for dozens of roaches.
“An average night if I’m cooking, I see all kinds of roaches coming out on my counter,” Bartee said.
Bartee says they’re coming from next door.
The city says the previous resident was kicked out in May because of hoarding tendencies and because all utilities were shut off. But Bartee says still, nearly five months later, roaches are still creeping and crawling through crevices in her wall.
She says she is constantly cleaning and has paid hundreds of dollars in pest control fees to try to stop it.
“I can open up my refrigerator, there might be one on the edge of the door. It’s just gross,” she said.
She says she’s been calling both the city and Jackson County non-stop for help. Bartee has seen inspectors go in and out. She says what one inspector told her last week gave her chills.
“They said it was a cat in the kitchen, dead,” she recalled.
Flies swarm the door and Bartee isn’t sure what the city will find on the other side, but she hopes they put an end to it once and for all.
“Like a prisoner in my own house. I’m a prisoner. That’s what I feel like.”
FOX 4 did speak with the city Wednesday night, it says the issue is not being neglected. The city along with animal control will investigate further on Thursday.
