Executive Towers residents face soaring water bills amid other building problems
TOLEDO, Ohio (WTVG) — Residents at Executive Towers say they are dealing with problems that have made it difficult to live there, including standing water and mold. At the same time, they’ve been facing much higher utility bills than usual.
Tenant Randall Coon was charged $187.35 for water and sewer last month for his one-bedroom apartment.
“The sewer was $98.31, the water was $70.15,” Coon said.
He said he’s never paid a water bill that high before.
“Houston, we’ve got a problem,” Coon told 13 Action News, pointing to his bill.
Water bills increase as tenants leave
Venus Chapman, a leader of the Executive Towers Tenants’ Association, said her water and sewer rates have increased 54% since August.
“That’s ridiculous. I mean, some of my bills were as if I had a small house,” Chapman said.
August was when many tenants moved out after the city labeled Executive Towers a public nuisance for water leaks and roof problems.
According to Chapman, around 40 people remain in the building that has 146 units. Management for Executive Towers told 13 Action News the number that remains is closer to 30.
Chapman said as people move out, the bills go up.
“They’re increasing due to the lack of occupancy in this building,” Chapman said.
Lawsuit filed over billing practices
Chapman spoke to Fair Housing, and lawyers determined that the way tenants were being billed was unlawful. They filed a lawsuit on her behalf.
“The building is not sub-metered, and because there’s not submetering that can track the actual water consumption for each unit, what happens is that the building gets one big bill from the city and then it’s divided out based on certain criteria to each resident,” said Noah Woods, a staff attorney with the Fair Housing Center.
The bills are not necessarily correlated with how much residents are actually using.
Chapman has been talking with city leaders who say they are working with the law department to take action, but Chapman said there has been no action yet.
“I’ve heard that this takes time, but in the meanwhile, this takes time and it’s impacting people’s purses,” Chapman said.
Tenants say they will continue to contact city leaders to try to stop any unlawful billing.
Management’s response
13 Action News reached out to a representative with Denizen, the management company for Executive Towers.
Oksana Luk, president of property management for Denizen, wrote in a statement to 13 Action News that she is in contact with the City of Toledo regarding the water and sewer bills.
Even though people have moved out of the building, Luk said their bills have not decreased and are the same as they were when there were 100 residents living there.
“We did give credits to the residents for the last two bills and for December, essentially eating the difference,” Luk wrote.
Luk told 13 Action News she is requesting that the meter be inspected or replaced.
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