NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans family says they're fed up with false promises they say continual maintenance issues at their apartment have all come to a head.
Apartment O217 at Lakewood Pointe Apartments. According to the New Orleans Fire Department, they received a call of an electrical fire just after 1 p.m. Tuesday.
“My mum and my dad have Graves' Disease, my dad is 70 years old, my mum is 67 years old, my mum could’ve died in here if it wasn’t for my brother. She would’ve died, she cannot walk fast down these stairs she is disabled,” Amy Garcia told Eyewitness News.
Now what’s left of Mona, William Sr, and William Jr Pitts’ belongings are in these bags, bags they say have to be thrown out.
“They’ve had several fires over here the apartment right next to us had a fire, two three years ago,” Mona Pitts said.
This isn’t the first issue the family says they’ve had since moving in back in 2012.
“There is no hot water in this apartment except in this kitchen,” Garcia said. "How is it ok, for someone to pay rent and can’t take a hot bath.”
“They go downstairs, get water from the actual kitchen and they bring it upstairs to take a bath,” Garcia said.
“I can't take it no more, I can’t take a decent shower, a decent shower,” Pitts said.
She says she and her husband both have medical conditions and her health has deteriorated since living here.
“My doctor asked me, are you around mold I said yes. It's been the same way, I clean up, I have gotten to the point where I don’t even clean up, I am fed up,” Pitts said.
“That is on every windowsill in this house, that is black mold. That is not soot, that is not black mold, that has been here. You can see it all up here, on the air-condition vents, and all they do is come and paint over it,” Garcia told Eyewitness News.
Pitts says they’ve gone into the office to report the water pressure and mold to property management for years.
We too tried to get answers, a man claiming to be a maintenance worker for Lakewood Pointe Apartments says he’s never heard of issues inside O217 but instead said quite the contrary.
Eyewitness News reporter Eleanor Tabone, asked: “You have never heard about a fire happening there?
“Nothing. The property here is great, everything is wonderful here,” the maintenance worker said.
The family says they were offered the demo unit to temporarily live in while their apartment was fixed.
“All I ask for is another apartment, I do not want that one renovated, I think it needs to be totally gutted and totally done," Pitts said.
Now without electricity, they’ve had to find somewhere else to stay.
Because Pitts said at this point, they just want to be let out of their lease because all this isn’t how someone should live.
The family have a GoFund to help with all costs associated with being displaced.
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