As Teneeka Hamilton wheeled a cart through the hallway of her apartment complex — the contents of which were all she had left — she felt relief, anger and frustration.
“This is so depressing,” she said Friday as she waited for the elevator. “Because once I check out of my hotel tomorrow at noon, I have no idea where I’m going to go.”
She couldn't help but contrast the feeling of despair to where she was last May when she first moved to Stoney Pointe Commons, a 68-unit supportive housing complex built in 2018 at 1791 Vernon Odom Blvd. for low-income tenants and people with disabilities.
After struggling with mental health issues and sleeping in hotels and her car, the idea of having a new apartment to herself was “exciting.”
“She was so happy coming in here,” said Hamilton’s mother, Gail Brooks, as she helped her daughter pack up what few belongings remained in her apartment on Jan. 20. “I really thought it was going to work out for you.”
But now, after more than eight months of battling an infection caused by ongoing rodent infestation issues, Hamilton “would’ve just stayed homeless” if she had known what she was facing. With few possessions left and nowhere to live, she is “really depressed" and considering a lawsuit against the complex and its management.
“I’m back in my car — where I started before I ever came here,” she said. “I still lost everything, and have to start over again.”
Rodent issue leads to 'nightmare' medical diagnosis
Hamilton moved into unit 219 at Stoney Pointe Commons in May 2021 with a project-based subsidy from Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority that paid $435 of her $691 rent.
The building is owned by Stoney Pointe LLC, according to county property tax records, but all 68 units receive housing vouchers from AMHA and social services from Community Support Services.
Hamilton said she wanted to live in the building because it was less than 3 years old at the time. The terms of her subsidy required her to sign a one-year lease to be eligible for a tenant-based voucher, formerly known as Section 8.
Almost immediately, she fell ill. At first, she chalked it up to an asthma flare-up, but soon her inability to breathe, as well as major body aches, fever and chills, became unbearable.
“I thought I was dying,” she recalled.
After a trip to the emergency room in June and multiple doctor’s appointments, she tested positive for histoplasmosis, an infection caused by breathing in spores of bird, bat and rodent feces. Around the same time, she began noticing small droppings throughout her apartment.
Months wore on and her diagnosis became a medical “nightmare,” draining her financially, requiring a procedure to remove tissue from her lungs and a slew of prescription drugs to begin to recover. The droppings became more frequent, and she started seeing mice — and even rats — in her apartment.
“This is scary,” she said. “I’m here because I have a mental health disability, and they’re supposed to help me stay stable, but I’ve been so unstable. … I feel like I’m fighting for my life.”
Hamilton found droppings in her cabinets, oven and microwave, and she worried she had contracted her illness from ingesting feces. She became so anxious about preparing meals in her home that she no longer cooked and relied on fast food or takeout.
When the Beacon Journal visited her near-empty unit last week, there were rodent droppings throughout the entire unit: behind the fridge, on countertops, in the bathroom, on the wall where her couch used to be and even in the coils of her stove.
Per her doctor’s orders, she threw out anything that might’ve had contact with the pests. She had spent more than $1,000 to furnish the entire apartment in May and had to toss her new rugs, couch, mattress, bedding and most of her clothes.
When she moved out, all she carried with her to her car — where she is currently living in subfreezing temperatures — was a suitcase and a few other small items. She used what “little money” she had left to book a one-night stay in a hotel.
Her primary source of income is disability checks. She lost her job at the Romig Road Amazon distribution center because she was "too sick to get there."
“I’m at the end of what I can handle right now,” she said. “I had to throw away everything I have. I have a couple outfits and hygiene things I tried to save. They told me not to keep anything but I had to keep something in order to live.”
Beyond monetary costs, the emotional and mental toll was "much worse." Each night when she tried to sleep, she said she would hear squealing in the utility closet off her bedroom where she would often spot the rodents coming from.
The terror kept her awake for months. She worried if she closed her eyes, a mouse would scurry across her bed — which she said had happened before.
She could hear them in the walls too, she said, as they made their way between apartments.
“It sounds like running water,” she said. “But it’s not. It’s rodents running through the walls.”
Pests are a problem in new building
Hamilton is not the only tenant who is experiencing rodent problems at Stoney Pointe.
Two other tenants along her hallway told the Beacon Journal that they had been living in the building since it was built in 2018, and had rodent issues ever since.
“[Management] would send out these complaint sheets, but it takes them awhile to do anything,” said neighbor Ken Hunter, who has been living in his unit since it was built. Management companies changed Jan. 1. “I’ve caught probably five or six [rodents].”
On the day she moved in, Hamilton and her mother both said they saw mousetraps in the hallway outside people’s doors and in common areas, such as the garbage room on her floor.
“They keep giving me sticky traps, but I’ve had to tape my cabinets and try to block where they can get in myself,” said Ernest Chatman, another tenant who has been living in the building since 2018. “I was sick all week in the hospital last week. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s got to do with that."
Hamilton said she is worried that not all tenants, many of whom experience mental health issues, are able to advocate for themselves. She hopes sharing her story and her possible suit against the complex will improve the living conditions for others after she's gone.
“No one should have to live like this,” she said. “If I got sick from the rats, imagine how many other people are sick and don’t even realize why.”
She complained to the previous management company, National Church Residences, on multiple occasions, but said all they ever did was place sticky traps on the floor of her unit and a poison trap on the counter. If a rodent was caught, she said she would have to deal with it herself.
At the beginning of 2022, ABC Management took over supervision of the building.
After Hamilton called the city this month, the housing division sent an inspector to her unit on Jan. 19. The citation, provided to the Beacon Journal, requires that management must eradicate rodents on the premises and extermination must begin “at once.” Management must comply with those orders by Feb. 10, according to the document.
AMHA interim Director Debbie Barry said she hadn’t heard of the problems at Stoney Pointe Commons prior to a Beacon Journal reporter’s inquiry, but she immediately contacted management to get an update on the rodent issue. ABC Management said despite receiving reports of both, pest control hadn’t found evidence of rat droppings, but did acknowledge a mice problem.
“According to a conversation with the owner’s representatives, since it’s been built they had an occasional issue so they had pest control on a monthly basis,” Barry said. “I think in November they just became aware that it was a bigger problem. At the time it became a bigger problem, the management company gave notice they’d be out by the end of the year.”
Devon Palmowski, ABC Management's director of operations, said the company was unaware of problems in the building prior to taking over Jan. 1, and it promptly began treating the building aggressively.
Palmowski said due to Hamilton's complaints, an exterminator was hired to make an assessment and seal entry points, which should be completed at the end of the week. If any additional treatment is needed, such as laying traps, that will be addressed as well, she said, though the problem is not "building wide."
"One tenant’s concern and what she stated was enough for us to bring in the proper people for an assessment," she said.
Typically, if a building fails inspections three times, all AMHA funding to the property ceases and tenants are issued a voucher, but infestations are “tricky,” Barry said. Because pests can take a while to be eradicated, a landlord just needs to prove they are treating the issue. Palmowski said she is hopefully the issue will be solved after their efforts this month.
"I cannot speak to whatever happened previously because I wasn’t there before [Jan. 1]," Palmowski said. "As far as ABC is concerned, we take these issues seriously and we are always aiming for the health and safety of the residents. I’m sorry she left and I wish it could’ve been rectified for her sooner."
Problems lead to broken lease, possible lawsuit
Hamilton was desperate to leave the complex after dealing with problems and health concerns for eight months, but her project-based voucher barred her from breaking her lease and leaving early.
Per regulations set by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, tenants with a project-based voucher must live in that unit for at least a year before they can switch to a tenant-based voucher, which allows a broader range of housing options.
The only way to break that agreement, Barry said, is for reasonable accommodation for a medical condition.
To prove those circumstances, Hamilton’s doctor wrote a letter on Jan. 7, saying she had “no doubt” that her living conditions caused her initial diagnosis, worsened her health and made her unable to improve medically. In the letter, provided to the Beacon Journal, she makes a “strong recommendation” that Hamilton “never return” to the apartment to protect herself from further worsening her health.
AMHA and ABC Management agreed to break her lease, and Hamilton was finally able to leave Jan. 21.
After she turned in her keys, she spent a night at Hilton Garden Inn on East Market Street. Rest was essential, she said, because she hadn’t slept a full night in months.
“I’m really depressed,” she said in between tears. “I’m just tired. I just want to rest. That’s the only way I’m going to get better for my health and stay sane. It’s so overwhelming, man.”
After she checked out on Saturday, she was back to living in her car as temperatures dipped into single digits. She is using the restroom at a local fast-food restaurant or a family member’s house to wash up.
She is on a long list for a shelter bed, though she is hesitant to stay in one out of fear of contracting COVID-19 on top of her current health troubles. But as temperatures continue to remain low during a January cold snap, she doesn’t feel like she has much of a choice.
Hamilton was able to secure her housing voucher a few hours after moving out. Though Akron City Council passed legislation barring landlords from income-based discrimination last year, she said it will likely be awhile before she can find a permanent residence.
She has hired a lawyer who has taken on her case and is currently investigating. She is considering a suit against the complex.
“I lost everything,” she said. “My furniture, my clothes, my health, my mind.”
Published in the Akron Beacon Journal on Jan. 27, 2022.