WEST MEMPHIS, Ark. — The Riverbend Apartments have been the center of West Memphis, Arkansas’ attention for a couple of days now, stemming from the severe flooding during storms.
Residents said this actually isn’t the worst they’ve had to deal with and that a lot of damage in their homes has been there since October.
Water is under the floorboards, sewage waste is coming up through the sink and there’s mold on the walls. Residents Domanique Nathan and Destiny Doss both said they never would have moved here if they knew these problems existed with no relief in sight for months.
“It’s not healthy at all and then especially with the stuff in the water, I can’t even get to the back,” Nathan said. “The problem here is that it floods constantly. You can smell it. It’s bad, really bad. You can tell it’s sewage because it’s got the little feces and stuff. Like the brown stuff. It comes up out of the water.”
These are issues they’ve been micromanaging for months.
“Sewer in your house is very unsanitary,” Doss said. “Coming up out of the sink, coming out of the walls and onto the floor in the kitchen. And it goes all the way back to my daughter’s bedroom. They’ve sent someone to clean the floor. They haven’t sent someone to fix the problem.”
This could be a management issue. ABC24 tried to contact Lubin Property Management, the company listed on Domanique’s lease. After a multitude of failed attempts reaching property management, we found the company contracts their maintenance issues out to RealPage.
In speaking with a supervisor from RealPage named Barbara, ABC24 was informed that they employees handling maintenance requests from Riverbend Apartments are located in the Philippines in Southern Asia.
She also informed us that she doesn’t know who gets maintenance request once they’re placed in the database for maintenance requests.
“I have three children but only one stays with me because my other two have asthma,” Nathan said. “They are not allowed to be around all the mold and stuff and I just would rather not risk them going to the hospital.”
Destiny said “both me and my daughter have asthma and if it’s flooding three or four times, I know there’s mold in there and I can’t stay in there. I haven’t really stayed in my apartment since November.”
They both said they’ve reported the issues numerous times and that “nobody seems to care.”
“They won’t make any accommodations for us,” Nathan said. “Not even just moving us into another complex, another apartment. They won’t even get us a hotel room until they get everything fixed.”
Destiny and Domanique agree that neither would have lived at Riverbend if they knew these issues would come up and stay for so long.
As of January 6, ABC24 has placed a work order through their contractor to send maintenance into each unit and inspect the various issues. We have also notified a building inspector to take a look at the apartment complex.
ABC24 reached out to every phone number and email address provided to us in attempts to reach the owner of Lubin Property Management.