Malarie Koch joined the tenant protest at her former apartment complex by accident.
“It’s pretty ironic, I came to dispute my move-out charges and try to get my deposit back,” Koch said. “I didn’t know this was going on, but I’m sure glad it is.”
At least a dozen current residents led the afternoon protest and press conference at Wimbledon Square and Gardens apartments, a 600-unit complex on Southeast 28th, a few blocks south of Reed College. Gathered outside the complex’s on-site leasing office, tenants detailed years of mistreatment and general disregard by their landlord, a California real estate company called Prime Group.
“My water has been shut off without warning more than a dozen times,” said Floyd Mangrum, who’s lived at Wimbledon for three years.
Many tenants shared similar complaints of sporadic, unexpected water outages in the past months, forcing them to use neighbor’s toilets and showers for days at a time. Mangrum said his water bill has somehow increased during this time period.
“There’s no accountability,” Mangrum said. “We deserve at least that.”
“It’s very upsetting,” said Samantha Hooper, a tenant who moved out of Wimbledon two weeks ago. “I haven’t ever had to deal with such neglect by my landlords.”
During her six months’ stay at Wimbledon, Hooper said she had repeatedly asked Prime to remove the black mold that was growing on her apartment walls and ceiling. It was never addressed. Hooper was forced to break her year lease over health concerns—the mold had left her with a persistent, new cough. She said Prime is still charging her rent.
Prime has not responded to the Mercury‘s request for comment.
Wilbledon charges tenants market-rate rent for its units. Even still, many tenants who want to leave Wimbledon say its nearly impossible to find another rental nearby in the same price range. This dearth of housing may make it easier for Prime to ignore its tenant’s complaints.
“This should go without saying, landlords have a legal obligation to maintain their premises in habitable condition,” said Eudaly. “All Portlanders should be outraged that Wimbledon residents are being exploited and abused by this out-of-state company that is profiteering during a declared housing emergency. This burden should not be carried by tenants alone.”
Eudaly stressed the responsibility the city and the state legislature have in improving tenant protections. She was echoed by Representative Rob Nosse, who represents Wimbledon’s district in the Oregon House.
“We’re going into session starting January 2019, and we are very excited to have a pro-renter housing agenda,” Nosse told the crowd.
This isn’t the first time Wimbledon’s been in the spotlight for tenant negligence. In May, Prime was forced to pay Wimbledon tenant Robert Trebelhorn $20 million after he fell through a concrete walkway to his apartment that had been reinforced by rotted-out wooden beams. The ensuing court-ordered repairs to Wimbledon’s walkways have only added to the tenant’s woes.
“It’s like Fourth of July every day for my dog,” said Lindzy Querner, referring to the constant stream of loud construction going on outside her apartment walls.
“I have to walk over power tools, concrete chunks, and power cords whenever I leave my apartment,” she said. “It’s not safe, it’s not sustainable.”
Querner and others shared anecdotes of trying to speak with management on site, and being constantly told just to “send an email.” And yet, Querner said, “Management has never returned a single email I’ve sent.”
Jason Kafoury, the lawyer who represented Trebelhorn in his lawsuit against Prime, said that he believes the Wimbledon is home to the “worst [living] conditions in this entire city.” Kafoury said that the Portland Fire Department had inspected Wimbledon prior to Trebelhorn’s case and found that every single apartment building on site had “serious life safety issues,”
“This place is one fire away from killing a lot of tenants,” he said.
Prior to this afternoon’s protest, Wimbledon tenants—who’ve organized as a tenant union under the name WIMBY—dropped off a list of demands at the complex’s leasing office. In it, WIMBY asks Prime to reimburse every tenant who was impacted by recent water outages or walkway repairs with at least two month’s rent. Tenants asked Prime to respond to their demands no later than November 30.
The problem happens with landlords (especially large management companies) that are local, too, but it always MUCH worse when the landlord/management company is out of state. All management companies in general love to let their properties literally rot while they increase the rent relentlessly. I live in a beautiful building on Capitol Hill in Seattle, The Biltmore, that is owned by one of these agencies and everything that was wrong in the building when I moved in 16 years ago is 10X worse now and the rent is 4X what I paid. But please, continue with the narrative that we MUST think about the poor landlords and all the responsibility they bear and how unfair everything is with regard to THEM.
*lived
About time! That place has serious, widespread water damage and, in my opinion, management has done little but put bandaids over the mold and rot. Good luck to all those protesting!
We’ll see a ton more of this if/when Eudaly and company enact even stricter rent control laws. Enforce the existing laws, they are already on the books and that would clear up the habitability issues. But strict price controls means actual good landlords (as opposed to these scumbags) won’t have the ability to recoup the costs of repairs and maintenance, ultimately leading to the deterioration of our housing stock.
And, ironically, all these new rules and restrictions Eudaly wants to push through will push smaller time folks out of the housing game, with the ultimate result that nearly all the city’s housing will eventually be owned by REITs and wealthy investors, rather than responsive and responsible local people. Enforce the existing habitability laws against scummy operations like this, leave the good landlords alone so they aren’t forced to sell out to big money just waiting because they know how this all works out with the rent control scam (see, e.g., San Francisco, Los Angeles, NYC, etc.).
I lived there and it was horrible. My car was stolen twice from the parking lot and the manager gave me the runaround each time I went asking for footage from the security camera. My dog and I were attacked by the vicious dogs of other residents twice and when I went to the office bleeding to report it I was met with gross incompetence and again given the runaround. I still have pictures of the ice covered stairs they did nothing about. No wonder they got sued. And of course I had to ferociously negotiate to get part of my deposit back.
“My dog and I were attacked by the vicious dogs of other residents twice and when I went to the office bleeding to report it I was met with gross incompetence and again given the runaround.”
Used to be a good landlord could just refuse to renew a lease for problem tenants like people who don’t control their dogs. Now they have to make thousands in relocation payments. Guess who gets screwed: the good landlord and the good tenant, to the benefit of the shitty tenant. Thanks, Chloe Eudaly!