PETERSBURG, Va. -- The owner of an apartment complex in Petersburg has been given 90 days to bring the property up to code after officials condemned one unit Thursday.
Pamela Wallace said her “foot fell through the floor” while she was cooking. A photo shows what maintenance crews uncovered when they pulled up the kitchen floor in her unit at the Windham Hill Apartments.
“This is the way we are living in this apartment and I don’t think it’s right we are living here like this,” Wallace said.
City officials began inspecting the apartment complex of roughly 24 units on Windham Street Thursday afternoon.
“Code Enforcement came down and they basically had a meeting in the parking lot with us all and explained how they want to look through the apartments to see, basically a welfare check, if you will,” renter Renard McPherson explained.
From that inspection, Apartment 9 where Wallace and Theodore Bonner live was condemned.
“They had to condemn it because it was too much mold and uninhabitable for a human to live there,” Bonner said.
Petersburg Fire Marshal Jim Reid said officials have “many concerns” about the complex.
Damaged floor joists are one of the concerns. Dozens of old mattresses stored in the apartment building’s crawlspace, according to sources, are another.
As a result, Code Enforcement officials and the fire marshal met with the property’s owner Friday morning.
“We’ve talked with the owner,” Reid said. “We’re coming up with a plan for code compliance of the property and code enforcement will be monitoring that progress.”
The owner has 90 days to fix the problems.
“We want to ensure the safety of the residents of the apartment building and we want to work with the ownership that they are in code compliance,” Reid said.
CBS 6 senior reporter Wayne Covil spoke with the property owner, who did not want to appear on camera. But he did confirm that he had met with city leaders and had 90 days to make repairs, which he said is a deadline he is working to meet.
This is a developing story. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have additional information to share.
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