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APARTMENT building residents plagued by a slew of issues at their apartment complex want better living conditions – but one renter claims that the owner won’t budge.
Remi Dortch, a mother of three, has dealt with bedbugs, cockroaches, and rodents in her seventh-floor apartment.
She has even adopted two cats to help deal with the infestation at City View Apartments in Omaha, Nebraska.
Dortch is not in a financial position to relocate from low-income housing at this time.
She worries that her children will be traumatized by their current living conditions.
“I don’t want them to see this environment and be like, ‘This is how we’re supposed to grow up,’” Dortch told local NBC affiliate WOWT.
Residents at City View have complained of crumbling walls, a broken elevator, and human waste in the hallways.
Some tenants are struggling to make it down the stairs of the eleven-floor apartment complex due to mobility issues.
The apartment complex’s nearly 200 tenants say they have contacted city officials, but they have been impeded by red tape.
Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert is urging tenants to resolve these issues through the city’s official channels.
“Unless there is a complaint made and signed, the city of Omaha cannot go in just by what they hear with rumors,” Stothert told ABC affiliate KETV.
“We had one person that did file a complaint that the building inspectors did go in and found some code violations, mostly plumbing violations,” she said.
The resident who filed the complaint is leaving the building, but many others are relying on the building’s owner, Tzadik Management, to fix them.
According to the city of Omaha, City View has 13 open code enforcement violation cases, most of which are plumbing violations.
Omaha’s strict laws and guidelines prevent city officials from intervening based on social media outcry alone.
For the city to take action, complaints must be filed officially to the city, and they cannot be done anonymously.
I don’t want them to see this environment and be like, ‘This is how we’re supposed to grow up.
Remi Dortch
City officials do not want to resort to vacating the building unless it becomes absolutely necessary.
City Councilmember Danny Begley recalled the case of Legacy Crossing, a similarly decrepit apartment complex that was condemned in 2022.
The condemnation forced the relocation of nearly 400 residents.
“And what are we gonna do as a contingency plan in the event people have to vacate this building through no fault of their own?” Begley told WOWT.
The Omaha Fire Department will conduct an inspection next week to fix City View’s broken alarm system.
The fire department has an inspection later this month to make sure the fire alarm system will be fixed.
The U.S. Sun reached out to Tzadik Management, which did not respond for comment.
