FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Residents at HighPoint apartment complex in Fayetteville say they’re frustrated with their living conditions and how management is handling the situation by not offering any solutions to the problems.
“Because the renters here have been dealing with issues for months and some of them have been years and the systemic plumbing problems here. The grounds aren’t properly maintained, and people just wanted results and they wanted to have a chance to confront their property manager,” said Billy Cook with Arkansas Renters United.
Ryan and Kristin Fortner have lived there for almost a year and they say they’ve had problems since they moved in.
“Sewage started coming up out of our bathtub to the point that the bathtub slightly started to overflow with human feces, pee, and it was coming up out of our floorboards... pretty much every inch of the house,” Kristin Fortner said.
The Fortners say they made multiple appointments with management, but they’ve been blown off. The couple says they can’t relocate because it’s hard finding affordable housing.
“Really we don’t have anything to do, we’re left with no other option but to either resign ourselves to live in human feces or stand up and fight for ourselves,” Ryan Fortner said.
Those residents aren’t the only ones fighting for change at the complex. On July 26, Ana Gaston's apartment burned down.
“So, I’m reaching around trying to put the fire out and everyone’s yelling at me to get out of the apartment because you couldn’t see anything, the smoke was so thick,” Gatson recalled.
She says after the fire, management terminated her lease and evicted her because allegedly she did not pay July’s rent.
“I can’t believe that they told me that they’re going to terminate my lease and put us out on the streets when I have two kids… I resigned my lease in March so I’m a tenant here… I pay my rent regularly,” said Gatson.
Gaston says she paid July’s rent twice and paid for the month of August, just in case she could be relocated to an empty apartment. But she doesn’t have documentation of the money order.
“They don’t have any documentation… supposedly I never paid my rent for the month of July which I did. But like, you’re saying my documentation burned in the fire. So, I mean, I don’t know what they did with my rent for the month of July,” Gatson explained.
Right now, Gaston and her children are going back and forth between living at her friend’s house and her parents. With school back in session… it hasn’t been easy for her as a single mom.
“I’m homesick… I want to have a home. My daughter told me this morning before she got on the bus that she misses having a home and that she wishes we had a place to go to,” Gaston said.
Billy Cook with Arkansas Renters United says they’ve delivered this report to the city of Fayetteville and the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). They have plans to send it to elected officials as well.
5NEWS spoke with the property manager today, who says she’s new to management and trying to catch up on everything. We also tried to speak with her supervisor, who declined comment.
If you’d like to help Ana Gaston get back on her feet, here is the link to her Gofundme page.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com.