RICHMOND, Va. – A Richmond woman reached out to CBS 6 Problem Solvers after a portion of her ceiling collapsed and fell onto her two children inside her South Richmond apartment complex.
The upset mother, who we will refer to as Kay, said she has only lived at Midlothian Village apartments for only four months and her problems have been almost nonstop.
“I've called the rent office and the maintenance man excessively. They’re telling me they are going to put in work orders," said Kay. “They may have come out three times… basically they have a tray where they take the water from, the ac leaking, and go on about their day.”
Kay says water has been leaking through her ceiling and sometimes her light fixtures.
She says Monday, a chunk of the ceiling collapsed onto her 11-month-old and 7-year old-son, who were playing in the area below.
"I was astonished. I was kind of in shock," she said. "I didn't know what to tell them. I kind of freaked out and panicked."
Kay showed CBS 6 pictures with black debris on the floor and holes in her ceiling.
“I went into the bathroom for a second and I heard it collapse. When I came out, my kids had debris all over them,” she explained. “The ceiling just basically came right in.”
Richmond firefighters tell us they responded to the scene.
Kay said a city inspector gave the complex three days to fix it.
She said a temporary fix has been put in place, but she hasn't got enough answers about the safety of her apartment from her property manager.
“All they did was put something up temporarily... I still have a hole in my utility room and they are telling me it needs to be dried out before they can work on it. My question is… Is it safe for us to stay there?” Kay asked.
We took her concerns to the apartment complex.
A woman who said she worked in the rental office explained that a 1 foot by 1 foot section of drywall fell and they're working to fix it.
She couldn't explain if a one-time leak caused the chunk to fall, but insists the mom never reported a leak. Their goal now is to meet the city inspector's deadline to fix the hole in the ceiling by Thursday.
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