ST. LOUIS — The city of St. Louis is stepping in to help residents of an apartment complex left scrambling by their landlord.
After years of complaints about mice, mold and mechanical issues at Southwest Crossing, property owner TEH Realty stopped paying its employees and its bills.
Thursday, city trash trucks cleaned up overflowing dumpsters.
The city is taking over for the private trash company that stopped showing up because they stopped getting paid. The city plans to charge TEH for the service, city spokesman Jacob Long said.
TEH is also several thousand dollars behind on its water bill, but the city says they will not shut off water to the units, Long said.
Southwest Crossing is now considered a nuisance property, with 14 condemned, unoccupied units and 27 building code violations.
Eighty to 90 percent of the people who live there qualify for government vouchers to help with their rent, Long said.
Long said the housing authority will not cancel vouchers, but it can’t control what the property owner decides to do.
There are about a dozen TEH apartment complexes in the St. Louis area.
St. Louis County says TEH is such a bad landlord that in August, they banned TEH properties from the government voucher program for five years, citing what they call “continual failures,” Deputy Director of the St. Louis County Housing Authority John Fraser said.
5 On Your Side hasn’t been able to get in contact with the company because both their website and Facebook page are down.
At Southwest Crossing, neighbors are considering a rent strike to force TEH to make their homes livable.
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