KANSAS CITY, Kan. – A Kansas City, Kan., mother says she just can’t deal with the mold in her apartment any longer. Rhonda Sutton said she has called three to four times a week for the past five months, trying to get the mold cleaned out of her bathroom.
Sutton said that’s not the only problem at the Waterstone Apartments in the 1100 block of County Line Road in KCK. Heaps of garbage next to a dumpster, an exposed window that’s sat without a cover for months, and in her apartment, busted up concrete floors covered with taped-down carpet. She told us the apartment manager has told her they’re letting her out of her lease and that she has to turn in her keys by the end of this month.
“Do I want to move from here? No, because I love my neighbors, and I love the community center and what they do for the kids in the community center,” Sutton said. “I just want things fixed.”
Sutton played for FOX 4 a recorded conversation in which she says the complex manager told her she’s being let out of her lease. In that call Sutton said okay, but told FOX 4 she doesn’t want to leave, she just wants help. The people we spoke with at the complex said that was a conversation between Sutton and the apartment manager, though they said letting people out of their lease is something he will normally offer to someone who constantly complains. They also said they’d send maintenance to her apartment Monday, but Sutton told us that person never came.
“He didn’t use the phrase eviction, but he did say he wanted my keys by August 30, so to me, that’s the same as telling me that I’m evicted,” Sutton said.
Sutton said she can see and smell the black spots of mold in the bathroom of her two-bedroom apartment. She said she first called the office five months ago, has complained three to four times a week since then, and has seen no action. She showed Fox 4 pictures and said, “This is what we live with. That’s awful.”
Sutton said she represents the people in her building by collecting complaints and turning them in at monthly meetings. Last month, she turned in those concerns, and the next day found herself in the manager’s office. She played for FOX 4 a recorded conversation, in which the person she claimed is the office manager said, “It seems to myself as well as to my supervisors, no matter what’s going on around here, or what we’re trying to do, we just can’t seem to make you guys happy in your apartment. So what we’ve decided to do is just, we’re going to go ahead and let you out of your lease. We’ll give you until the end of next month, and if you can turn your keys and stuff, we’ll let you go.”
FOX 4 spoke with two people Monday who work at the office. They didn’t want to go on camera but told us they couldn’t confirm the recorded conversation because it was with the office manager who wasn’t there at the moment. They said letting someone out of his or her lease ‘is’ what he normally offers to people who constantly complain.
When we asked them about the mold in Sutton’s apartment, one worker said, “We’ll definitely check it out today and get maintenance out there today. It’s not our objective to let it go and not take care of it.”
Sutton said, especially with school starting Tuesday, she’s worried and doesn’t know what will happen next.
“It’s frustrating,” she said. “And it’s frustrating that I have to leave, not knowing where I’m going to go, and not really having the money to go because they don’t want to fix things. And that’s hard on me.”