NEW ORLEANS — WWL Louisiana shared with you the story of a tenant living in an apartment in New Orleans East. The tenant says her apartment is infested with rodents. Well, according to the city's code enforcement team, the complex where that tenant lives is a repeat offender. The city says they've had several violations over the years.
"Woke up to a possum in my bed, and I haven't been back home since," said Aireon Davis. She lives at Carmel Brook Apartments and has been there for two years.
Davis shared a video from her motion camera, and you can see the rats running around. She says after finding a possum in her bed and constantly dealing with rats she's at her wit's end.
Councilman Oliver Thomas is furious. He says tenants should not be paying to live with rodents and mold. "How would you feel, a possum in your bed, or a rodent in front of your door that's bigger than a cat," he said.
"What are these apartment complex owners and managers doing with the money they get from people?"
According to the Orleans Parish tax assessor's website the company that owns Carmel Brook is based in New York. Councilman Thomas is calling on the state to give the city permission to seize a landlord's property if they aren't maintaining it.
According to Anthony Davis, the city's Director of Code Enforcement, violations at Carmel Brook date back to 2016. He says one of those violations was rat problems.
"Fast forward to 2021 there was 11 more violations found again supposedly abated... two days ago we inspected a different unit at this location and found them to have 12 or 13 violations," he said.
He says the city is cracking down on repeat offenders, "We are starting to maintain a database of these apartment complexes that have repeated violations... these repeat offenders keep winding up on the same list, they'll fix the property but it just switches to a different apartment."
Davis said the city as a whole needs to hold landlords accountable, saying, "We keep hitting them where it hurts most and that's their checkbook, We'll keep increasing those fines until they come into compliance."
WWL Louisiana called Carmel Brook Apartments twice on Wednesday and twice again on Thursday and is yet to hear back.
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