After years of living with rodents, and roaches and crime, every single resident has now moved out of Forest Cove apartments in southeast Atlanta, while a new effort by the city has dozens of other properties on notice that they will either make the properties livable - or deal with the consequences.
Mayor Andre Dickens announced the effort at a press conference in front of the now-closed Forest Cove property on Monday.
"800 lives have been changed, they're in safe and dry rat-free environments, trash- and debris-free environments," said Dickens.
Felicia Morris, better known as Peaches, said raising two sons in the Forest Cove apartments was nearly impossible.
“It was hard… it was so hard... couldn’t sleep we had rats, we had roaches,” said Peaches.
So she was thrilled when the city helped her relocate to Ellenwood.
"Oh it's so peaceful, I don't have to worry about the shooting, I don't have to worry about the rats, I don't have no roaches," she said.
Peaches is one of 800 residents the city said it has helped move from the complex over the last few months to other properties across metro Atlanta - those efforts supplemented by $9 million in federal American rescue funds.
But Mayor Dickens said their work is far from over- with similar issues at 42 other properties – which are now are on notice. The city is asking residents to call in their concerns to 311.
"We want to hear the bad news, we have a good idea based on the hard work the code enforcement team has done,“ said Dickens.
Peaches said speaking out on Forest Cove changed her life.
"To talk about it makes me want to cry, 'cause the condition we had to go through, and I had to fight so long,“ she said.
The company that owns Forest Cove told 11Alive its next step is to completely renovate all 396 units, so the residents who moved could come back. But they said there's no timeline yet on when that could happen.