ROSWELL, Ga. — As temperatures continue to rise in our state, an elderly couple in Roswell was wondering how they were going to make it through without a working air conditioner in their apartment.
Christina DeLeon, 73, and her husband, 84, said they were living without A/C at their Grace Apartment Homes apartment (formerly the Crest Apartments) for over a month. Neither can drive and both of them are disabled.
"We have no way of getting around so we can't even go to the store to get some relief during the day to get a little bit of cool air," she said. "So we're stuck here."
DeLeon did not want to worry her daughter, Vernalisa Rougeux, and had not told her until this week, as she noticed temperatures continue to creep up.
That's when Rougeux called 11Alive to help her mother.
"I said, 'What's most stressful mom? Finding you dead in the apartment or you telling me what's really going on here?' It's a nightmare and it's going to kill my parents," she said.
When 11Alive came in to help, their apartment had reached 84 degrees.
DeLeon claims she’s called maintenance several times about this and other issues, including a broken faucet handle and water damage. She said they tell her that they are short-staffed.
"I got water damage in the bedroom, I got it in the kitchen, in the bathroom," DeLeon listed. "I've been looking at it for six months now."
She's been relying on a few fans and open windows to keep the apartment as cool as possible.
"But there’s hardly screens in the windows so when they open, bugs come in," Rougeux said. She added that she's seen several insects inside the apartment.
11Alive spoke to Grace Apartment Homes' management in person Thursday and an hour later, maintenance workers started fixing the problem.
Hours later, Rougeux said the A/C started working again in her $1,400 per month apartment.
"We're on social security so we don't have much money, so we're paying a lot of money - most of what we have - just to be in this apartment," DeLeon explained.
DeLeon, who has a heart condition, is now back home but said a lot of damage has already been done and hopes the other issues get resolved quickly, too.
"With all this heat in the apartment, I had to go back to the heart doctor again because I’m having a hard time breathing and I’m going to have a bunch of tests done on my heart again," she said.
Senior Attorney Maggie Kinnear with Atlanta Legal Aid said that tenants have an obligation to pay rent, but the landlord has to maintain and repair the apartment.
“Under the circumstances of the heatwave, consider it a priority to get that repaired and make sure that this person, who's a senior, has the proper ventilation and cooling that she needs because that obviously is a health hazard," Kinnear said over the phone.
She advises all tenants to document every conversation with landlords and explains there are steps you can take if management does not do the repairs.
"Have code enforcement come out to do an inspection, which hopefully, then they will require the landlord to make the repairs within a certain amount of time," Kinnear said. "For smaller repairs, it is possible to do a repair and deduct. They could end up having to file a lawsuit, unfortunately, to get either reimbursed for expenses if they have to pay to go to a hotel and if a tenant can't afford to do that, try to get the landlord to. The landlord should cover the expenses related to having to relocate to someplace that's actually cool."
For more information about rental property repair laws in Georgia, click here.