RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Mushrooms growing from a carpet, soiled diapers thrown from an apartment onto a parking garage roof, no hot water, electricity not working, out-of-order elevators, children kicking doors and running away.
There was no shortage of complaints and horror stories from residents of the 444 Park Apartments, who came together Tuesday (Jan. 31) at Richmond Heights City Hall to describe their living conditions at the city’s largest apartment complex.
The occasion was a Ward 2 community meeting called by Councilman Frank Lentine and attended by Mayor Kim Thomas, City Prosecutor Michael Cicero, Building Commissioner James Urankar and some members of council.
About 30 residents, fed up with the conditions at the four-building, 738-unit complex at 444 Richmond Park Drive, attended to voice their concerns, learn what the city was doing to help them and find out what they could do to help themselves.
City leaders told the residents that, much as they had come together on this night, the key to success in changing conditions at 444 Park is to join with each other and work toward solutions.
Those leaders heard first from a woman who said she has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and moved into 444 Park on Aug. 1, 2021. Nineteen days later, she said she returned home from work and was confronted with the prospect of walking up stairs to her unit because the elevator was not working.
“When I got home ... I had to call the fire department because I could not walk up the stairs,” she told those in attendance.
The woman said she next contacted the city and was told there was nothing it could do about the elevators because the State of Ohio regulates elevators.
“Me, in that apartment, I felt like I was going to die,” she said. “Because if I can’t get up the steps, I sure can’t climb up them.”
The woman also said her apartment was found to have a high level of carbon monoxide.
“When the gas company came to me, he said the carbon monoxide in my house was 35 (parts per million). Had I stayed in there, I would have been dead.”
Another woman told of moving into 444 Park last year with a young child who has asthma. She said her apartment didn’t have air conditioning in the summer and didn’t have heat until October.
She said she went to the complex’s RHM Real Estate management office when her apartment didn’t have warm water and was told that maybe she could take a shower at 3 a.m.
The woman added that, another time, her young daughter cried when a portion of the bathroom ceiling fell in as the girl was taking a bath.
One woman said a bat flew into her hair while she was in a 444 Park building, and yet another woman told of slipping on a wet bathroom floor and falling into and breaking her toilet, which caused water to gush about.
The woman said she called management four times that night about the gushing water, but received no answer or reply. A friend helped her sop up water with blankets.
The lack of response from management inside the buildings was a frequent theme of complaint throughout the evening.
Urankar has sent the believed owners of the 444 Park two letters of adjudication, the first in September of 2022 and the second in early January. The letters require that owners/management correct code violations and make repairs or face consequences through Lyndhurst Municipal Court.
The first letter is now under appeal. Urankar said he has not heard “any meaningful response from the owners to correct those issues” referenced in the first letter.
The first letter dealt with water, sewer issues and non-working boilers; the second with trash piling up, bug infestation, safety and security.
Urankar said more such letters are forthcoming.
“There’s the parking lot,” he said of the subject of an upcoming letter. “The exteriors of the buildings, which are not maintained, some of the catch basins are destroyed.
“The security doors -- it’s required to have security doors locked at all times. I went there three days ago; several doors did not lock at all,” he said.
“They keep telling me they’re going to get there, they’re going to do it, they’ve got a plan, but they’re not presenting that plan.”
Cicero told the residents: “Nobody deserves to live in those horrid, disgusting conditions. In the last five years, I’ve had to go after Loganberry, Dorchester, Marcella Arms (all three are apartment complexes), Richmond Mall, Hilltop Plaza, which is pending right now (for parking lot issues), and 444 Park.
“What do all of these except one (Hilltop Plaza) have in common? Out-of-state owners. Absentee landlords to the nth degree.
“They don’t live in our community. They don’t even live in the region. It’s about dollars and cents for them.”
Cicero told the residents that Thomas and City Council have been taking steps to rectify problems at the apartment buildings, such as the passage of a recent ordinance requiring video cameras to be installed at all apartment building entrances and exits, and the installation of license plate reading cameras on well-traveled roads.
Council will soon be voting on legislation that establishes lighting standards for apartment building exteriors. Urankar is now working on developing that legislation.
While discussing parking lots outside apartments, Cicero let audience members know of an arrest being made in a recent matter in which a man shot up his ex-girlfriend’s car in the 444 Park lot.
Cicero urged residents to band together and handed out a sheet of paper listing seven organizations that provide free legal tenant advocacy services.
Audience members spoke aloud of their willingness to file a class action lawsuit against the 444 Park owners -- who are still not exactly known.
The letters of adjudication were sent to 444 Park Owners LLC of West Hempstead, N.Y.; Irving Langer, of E&M Associates LLC in Brooklyn, N.Y.; John J. Joyce (the owner of RHM Real Estate Group, the complex’s property managers), of Lyndhurst; and 444 Richmond Park Apartments LLC of Hilliard, Ohio.
Urankar told residents to send him emails when troubles arise and to include photos. Cicero vowed to keep working to make positive changes come about.
On Wednesday (Feb. 1), Urankar released a statement on the matter that read: “As of February 1st, 2023, the owners of 444 Richmond Park Apartments LLC or RHM Real Estate Group has not submitted any plan or schedules on how they intend to remediate the conditions at 444 Park Apartments, while having more than four months to do so.
“The building owner’s failure to comply leaves tenants of the apartment complex in an untenable situation of having to live in Unsafe and Unsanitary conditions.”
Council President Bobby Jordan, angered by what he heard about 444 Park’s conditions, addressed the audience, stating: “It’s sad. It’s just really sad. We’ve heard stories, but to hear them from your face, to hear emotion, to hear the stress in your voice. This is crazy.
“I commend you all for not putting hands on people. You all have paid rent, and this is how you’re living. You’re supposed to be living like somebody who owns a house. Lights is a must, heat is a must. Water is a must.
“Number one,” he said, “you cannot let this go unattended. You guys got to meet again. This (those present) is the leadership of your apartments, right here. You guys got to take a stand starting today and come together and make these people (ownership) pay.
“You got to come together just the way people did in Mississippi and Alabama. We’ve got too much communication for people not to know what’s going on. If I’m coming (to gather to make things better), my next door neighbor’s coming -- I’m going to grab you (to come) with me. Now that person grabs somebody.
“You guys got to be together and we can change this. This is ridiculous.
“I’m embarrassed to be the council president and you living like this. It’s crazy. It’s sad. I just want to say I’m sorry,” Jordan said.
“We’re going to do everything we can do as a council. We’re going to sign whatever legislation needs to be signed. We’re going to do whatever we can do to help you guys.
“But the most important thing is you guys coming together. As Mike (Cicero) said, there’s power in numbers.
“When they (Cicero and the court) start to enforce this, when they (ownership) start seeing people moving together, they’re going to get scared and changes will start to happen. But you got to move together. Not one person -- all people.”
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