Home not-so-sweet home: Albany renters detail stories of rodent infestation, neglect

ALBANY — When Aretha Wimberly moved to Albany from Broward County, Fla., in 20202, it was with the intention of starting a new life while pursuing her business interests.

She found what she thought was a nice apartment on Nottingham Way and was optimistic about the future.

Instead, she said, a rodent infestation at her residence turned her life into a nightmare just as the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing.

Wimberly got a job that allowed her to work at home as the pandemic limited business opportunities, but the ever-present rodents made it impossible to sleep or work. Management occasionally plugged holes in an air conditioning closet where rodents were gaining entry into the apartment, but they always found a way to get in and made new holes, she said.

As she was packing up to leave, Wimberly made a video she shared of a large hole she located behind the stove when she moved it, evidence, she said, that the mice had an ingress for months. Other entry points included holes in rotting baseboards under cabinets in the aging apartment complex.

“I’ve always had asthma,” Wimberly said. “I wake up at 3 o’clock or 5 o’clock, and I can hear the chirping, or one of them is caught in a trap. It’s just been insane. People don’t live like that.”

Then there were the signs of urine and droppings in cabinets. Wimberly said she also spent hundreds of dollars of her own money trying to mitigate the encroachment.

“As time passed, I realized they were nesting in the walls,” she said. “They were so comfortable. I’d wander in the kitchen, and one would be sitting there.”

Other conditions that exacerbated the problem included garbage stacked around the apartment complex and a nearby apartment complex with high grass, she said.

Wimberly also shared emails sent to and received from the city of Albany that outlined her efforts, beginning with a complaint to the management of the apartment complex in February and complaints to the city’s Code Enforcement Department beginning in April.

After a Code Enforcement officer did a walk-through of the apartment, management agreed to make repairs to seal holes in the air conditioning closet and to resume regular extermination visits.

“However, I repeatedly emphasized that the remaining holes and cracks, especially around the dishwasher, would allow rodents to continue to enter the apartment,” Wimberly wrote in a Nov. 4 email sent to apartment management, Albany Mayor Bo Dorough and City Commissioners B.J. Fletcher, Jon Howard, Bob Langstaff and Chad Warbington and four Dougherty County Commission members. “An exterminator visited the apartment within a week after the walk-through with Code Enforcement for the first time in months and has not returned since. The exterminator services were discontinued altogether after that one visit after I provided proof that the rodents were nesting in the walls.”

The one response Wimberly received from commissioners came from Howard, who recommended that she move when her lease is up.

That isn’t an option, Wimberly said, as she can’t live in the environment any longer and was in the process of returning to Broward County to live with her daughter. As a tenant, she said, she always paid rent on time and did not violate any terms of the rental agreement.

“Yet, I have been forced to live in an unsafe, unsanitary, and unhealthy environment during the COVID-19 pandemic,” she wrote in her email. “I have been forced into a situation creating a serious financial hardship. My emotional and mental well-being have been compromised to the point that I cannot perform at full capacity as a remote worker. The situation impacts my ability to retain my source of income.

“The situation forces me to vacate my home out of fear that I will contract a disease left behind by rodents and compromise my immune system, making me more vulnerable to the coronavirus and COVID-19, including variants. I am forced to incur moving and temporary housing expenses to protect my health and well-being.”

Wimberly has filed a lawsuit in Dougherty County State Court seeking to protect herself from any negative effects of moving out before her lease expires. After several additional requests by Code Enforcement, management has not responded to the city.

At an apartment complex in east Albany, another tenant also was trying to find a new place to live, in this case because the security lights on foyers and about half of the parking lot lights are out.

Howard confirmed the lights on foyers were turned off because the company had not paid its utility bills.

The tenant, who did not want his name used because he needs a reference from his current landlord to get a new place to live, said that in this instance the lights have been out for several weeks. Under a previous owner, the lights were off for about four months at the complex.

The situation is dangerous for residents returning home from work in the dark, the tenant said, for children and for those going up and down stairs in the two-story apartment complex.

During a recent City Commission meeting, Commissioner B.J. Fletcher suggested forming a task force — and hiring more personnel if necessary — dedicated to ensuring that property managers meet their responsibilities and follow codes.

“I get calls every day,” she said. “We’ve got to do a better job of looking at what these landlords have got to do. We are in the business of keeping them honest.”

Part of the job of the task force would be to educate landlords on their responsibilities and renters on rental contracts and to hold landlords to standards, the commissioner said.

One issue is that residential rental units change hands frequently, Fletcher said.

In some instances the change in ownership occurs as the city is trying to make a court case or there are serious issues at an apartment complex, such as one in east Albany that had a broken sewage pump that resulted in backups into apartments.

“We’ve got to do a better job working with these judges, outlining to the judges what is going on,” Fletcher said.

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