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Contact7: Boulder woman fighting apartment over sewage leak, mold

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BOULDER, Co. -- When Kari Nelson started seeing water under her fridge and stove, she thought she had a water leak. It turned out to be a sewage leak, and she says she’s still dealing with damage and mold. So she called Contact7. 

“We would flush the toilet and water would spill into three rooms,” Nelson said.

The Tantra Lake Apartment maintenance staff came out and repaired the broken pipe twice. 

“I saw mold and they said that’s not mold. And I said it has spores I can see them,” she said.

Nelson even hired an outside company, AirTest Co, that found “elevated levels” of mold and “visible fungal growth” in the bathroom and kitchen. 

“As of right now there are high levels of allergenic mold in the air and there’s the biggest problem which is the bacteria from the sewage,” Nelson said. 

Maintenance sprayed the bathroom and the kitchen floor, but Nelson and her 8-year-old daughter still don’t feel safe. They’ve been out of their home since Sunday. 

“My last email correspondence at noon (Thursday) was they were going to come and disinfect. That’s all they were going to do,” she told Denver7.

She called Contact7 about the issue. Contact7 then called Boulder Housing Partners, the company that manages the apartment complex. In a statement late Thursday afternoon, a spokesperson wrote that “maintenance personnel will try to finish drywall repairs on Friday.” That spokesperson also told Denver7’s Jason Gruenauer that they would look at the floor boards as well.

Nelson says she was never told about anything other than a spray cleaning until she called Contact7.

“But it makes a huge difference that something more is happening so I’m incredibly grateful,” she said. 

Then late Thursday night, Boulder Housing Partners wrote an addition to their statement to Denver7. 

After they received the mold test results from Nelson’s outside company, the property management company wrote “BHP will complete repairs and mitigation as quickly as possible to make the property is safe for the resident. BHP will reimburse for accommodations for as long as the resident is required to be out of the apartment.”

“I just want the house to be safe clean, sanitized, and properly mitigated so my daughter and I are living in a safe home,” Nelson said.