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WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. — When a renter and mother living in a Wheat Ridge apartment says she couldn’t get help dealing with issues of water leaks in her ceiling and sewage backups, she called Contact7. Within days, apartment maintenance was on site fixing those issues.
“I’ve never experienced anything as bad as this,” Carmen Burda said, describing her living conditions before mid-October.
Last Saturday morning, at the Yukon Court Apartments in Wheat Ridge, Burda, and her family woke up to a “nightmare.”
“We woke up to six inches of raw sewage in our bathtub,” she said.
Some kind of backup caused it, yet she says her calls to maintenance went unanswered.
“So my husband was forced to put feces and toilet paper down the drain with running water,” she described.
That was one of two major issues she told Contact7 about.
“We have running water coming through [our bathroom ceiling], living with holes, having to keep bowls in our bathroom to collect water,” Burda said.
The water was coming from an upstairs neighbor’s bathroom, through a hole in her bathroom ceiling, leaving behind dark spots she described as “visible black mold.” The apartment complex disagreed with that diagnosis.
Burda says she called maintenance several times; she took videos of herself complaining to apartment management and sent a certified letter outlining her issues in mid-October. That same time, she called Contact7 and saw some movement.
“He did come in, but he did not remove any of the drywall," she said.
Contact7 told Yukon Court and their owners, Gibraltar Properties, that a news story was in the works. On Monday night, management sent Denver7 a statement reading in part:
"Management is unaware of any unresolved issue in this unit. We take all Tenant issues very seriously and rapidly respond to these issues as soon as we are made aware they exist."
The next day, maintenance was back at Burda’s apartment to replace a piece of drywall. Management sent an additional statement that read in part:
"The ceiling was found to be clear and free of any mildew or mold; the drywall was dry and no water issues were noted. At this time, the Tenant was made aware that no issues had been found."
Burda says she’s happy to see a fix after making the call for help. She added that she is worried that a sewage backup or future water issues could happen again.
“I just want to live in peace, and I don’t want to be getting sick,” she said.
Management says "no issues were found to be present nor were there any ongoing maintenance issues not addressed."