Bloomington officials have threatened real estate giant Hunter Bloomington Properties with fines and legal action after more than a dozen complaint-driven inspections in the last two months uncovered problems including sewage backups, mold and broken air conditioning that left units with temperatures near 90 degrees.
Inspections by the city’s Housing and Neighborhood Development department confirmed many of the tenants’ complaints, and inspectors said some of the units were violating the city’s Residential Rental Unit and Lodging Establishment Inspection Program.
Renters complained that serious maintenance problems went unaddressed for months despite repeated complaints to management.
Hunter manages more than 1,000 local apartment units including Millennium, Bloom and Hoosier Court apartments, but most of them are outside of the city, which means most renters lack access to Bloomington’s housing enforcement system. Some of those tenants and a tenant advocate are pushing Monroe County leaders to create new protections for renters. A county councilman said he’s interested in finding a solution, including perhaps expanding the city’s enforcement program.
Renters at Heritage Apartments, on Hillside Drive, reported damaged flooring, mold and broken air conditioners that made the apartments uninhabitable during summer heat. One tenant said neither he nor his dog could stand to stay in the apartment as temperatures routinely measured near 90 degrees. The AC was not working for the second consecutive summer, he said. Another tenant at the complex said sewer water was coming out of the sink.
A tenant in Oakdale Square, on the city’s west side, said they’d been without air conditioning for two months and recently noticed a “burning-like smell.”
Hunter officials declined to comment. A local employee at the Millennium Apartments office who identified themselves as someone from corporate but did not want to give their name said the company would not comment and then asked an employee of The Herald-Times to leave the property. Employees at the Heritage Apartments office also declined to comment.
City threatens fines, legal action against Hunter Bloomington Properties
Responding to the tenant complaints, city inspectors found leaks, malfunctioning air conditioning units and temperatures near 90 degrees, “biological waste” on floors, deteriorated walls and “biological growth.”
In at least one case, in Sassafras Hill Apartments near Bloomington High School South, continued violation of the city’s housing ordinances prompted the city’s legal department to send Hunter Properties a demand letter, or formal notice requiring the problems to be corrected.
The letter, dated July 21, says the company has failed to correct violations and must now do so by Aug. 21. “Failure to do so will result in the city issuing fines of $2,500.00 per violation, per day, for each day …. Furthermore, the city may initiate legal proceedings against you,” assistant city attorney Taylor Brown wrote.
Tenants who live in apartments outside of city limits cannot file complaints with the city’s HAND department. While those renters can file health complaints with the county health department and structural complaints with the county building department, those tenants cannot contact a county office that would respond to tenant complaints outside of those matters, said David Henry, a member of the county council.
County renters seek protections outside Bloomington city limits
Current and former Hunter tenants Jaynae Johnson and Jordyn Galyan are trying to change that and have joined efforts with Hoosier Action, a community organization that helps Indiana residents with matters including health care, cooling centers and housing.
Johnson, an IU freshman who moved into a Bloom apartment in June with two roommates, said the air conditioning stopped working on July 2, and despite repeated requests for maintenance, the roommates got no response for nearly three weeks. She said the roommates could not sleep in the unit because it was too hot and moved temporarily into the house of one of her roommate’s family before installing window air conditioning units in the bedrooms.
“It was getting so hot in our apartment, we had to move our cats out because they were overheating,” Johnson said in a nine-minute Tik Tok video that got about 2,000 likes and generated more than 250 comments. Multiple people commented they had no air conditioning and that other maintenance problems had gone unaddressed for weeks.
Johnson said the temperature in her unit rose as high as 87 degrees before the AC in her building got fixed on July 20. She said maintenance workers reached out to her personally because of the video. But she said some of her neighbors in late July were still dealing with long unaddressed maintenance problems.
Galyan, a Bloomington native who works in education, said she lived in a two-bedroom, second-floor unit at Bloom Apartments, outside of the city limits, with her husband for about two years until mid-June before moving out because of a malfunctioning air-conditioner.
The AC system struggled to keep the apartment’s temperature below 80, but it ran constantly, which pushed the couple’s monthly electricity bill as high as $800, Galyan said. Management failed to correct the broken AC and other problems despite repeated requests for help, she said, prompting the couple to move out.
“We were just over it,” Galyan said.
Because tenants outside Bloomington city limits cannot file complaints with the city’s HAND department, their allegations could not be independently verified through the city’s inspection process. However, many of the issues they described — including mold, broken air conditioning and delayed maintenance — mirrored complaints documented by Bloomington inspectors at Hunter properties within the city.
Johnson and Galyan have helped Hoosier Action knock on hundreds of apartment doors to gather feedback about problems with the local rental market.
Through those efforts, Hoosier Action says volunteers have collected about 175 tenant accounts from apartment complexes across Monroe County.
Tracey Hutchings-Goetz, the New Albany-based organization’s Monroe County organizer, said renters frequently reported mold, broken air conditioners, electrical issues and maintenance requests that went unresolved for weeks or months.
“There are landlords in this county who do what they are contracted to do … but particularly with these very large companies, with these out-of-state companies, those things are happening now,” she said.
Hutchings-Goetz said county renters often have few practical options when landlords fail to make repairs.
“There’s just not even a guy you can call,” she said.
While tenants can pursue civil litigation or file complaints with state agencies in some circumstances, she said those processes can be slow, costly or unfamiliar to renters seeking immediate help.
The group is asking county officials to consider protections ranging from a housing ombudsman to a local complaint and enforcement process for renters outside Bloomington city limits.
“Folks should have someone in their community that they can turn to,” Hutchings-Goetz said.
Monroe County officials discuss expanding housing enforcement options
County Council member David Henry agreed that a gap exists between renters who live inside Bloomington and those who live elsewhere in the county.
“For renters in the county, there’s not a one-stop shop to go take those complaints, get questions answered, find the right department of government to talk to,” he said.
Henry said county officials are discussing possible solutions, including a centralized office to direct complaints, a county housing-enforcement program similar to Bloomington’s HAND department or a partnership with the city to expand existing services.
Boris Ladwig can be reached at bladwig@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Mold, heat complaints spur action; county renters want protections
Reporting by Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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By Boris Ladwig, The Herald-Times | USA TODAY Network
