INDIANAPOLIS — Over the years, WRTV has done countless stories about residents dealing with persistent problems at different apartment complexes. In every story, on the advice of local health officials, we share this message: report problems to your local health department.
That, however, only helps so much.
Many of the people living in apartments where there are water leaks, ceiling collapses, mold, or no AC say they can't live in those conditions while waiting for the health inspectors to issue violations to get those things fixed.
A group of people residing in some downtown Indianapolis apartments have been particularly vocal on this issue. They've formed a union: Reverie Tenants Union.
"They could do the bare minimum. They could do a single thing to help any of their tenants to make some of the repairs that need to be done," Sofi Rivers, a resident, said during a Friday afternoon protest.
Rivers says they live in the Piccadilly Building. While the pictures online look great, Rivers says the reality is much different for many units including hers.
"I've only lived here in the Piccadilly Building since March and in the time since then, any maintenance requests we've had has been pretty summarily ignored," Rivers said
Rivers' biggest issue to date happened in June when portions of her ceiling fell down.
"My ceiling collapsed and I had to go into the office on that following Monday after not hearing a single thing from them all weekend and slam a box of ceiling material on their desk," Rivers said.
This building isn't the only one on the radar of protesters. Back in August, WRTV told you about problems at the Indy Indie Artist Colony. Water leaking from the ceiling left the place in shambles. Residents tells us the ceiling was fixed but not the leak and as of last Friday, portions of the ceiling had fallen down again.
Rivers say she and other residents are looking in to all options to get repairs done. Along with reaching out to those who oversee the buildings, they've filed complaints with the health department, they're documenting all the issues and looking into their legal options.
"We're asking for the bare minimum. We're asking for water damage that's long standing to be fixed. We're asking for deep structural renovations to maintain these beautiful, historic buildings," River said.
WRTV was not able to reach Reverie Estates, but we did receive a response from H-I Management concerning the ongoing issues and what's being done to fix them. That statement from Timothy Shafer, president of the company, is below.
Having recently taken over the management of the Indie Artist building, we did have some recent plumbing issues that required the water and electric to be disconnected for a short period of time without notice while the cause of the damage was determined. The source of the problem has been corrected, the water cleanup was addressed, and contractors have been on the site addressing the damage. In addition, outside professionals have been engaged to further assess any damage and needed repairs resulting from the incident. While we do regret any inconvenience this has caused to our valued residents, we are working hard to address this and any other issues that surface.
