Stillwater apartment avoids accountability as businesses demand payment

STILLWATER, Okla. ( KFOR ) — Some Oklahoma small businesses say a Stillwater apartment complex that’s recently been met with code enforcement violations and complaints hasn’t paid them all of what they’re owed for past work.

News 4 has been following ongoing problems with Oklahoma State University students moving into the Apex on Perkins apartment complex. The complex is not affiliated with OSU, but dozens of students were met with several hour waits in long lines August 9 to pick up their keys. Some of them, after getting inside their units, were met with filthy conditions and uninstalled/missing appliances.

“It doesn’t surprise me,” said Brandon Stokes with Aladen Carpet Cleaning & Restoration. “They pretty much ran in the ground using any companies locally, so nobody will work for them. So now it’s up to their staff to turn over 300-400 apartments. No carpet cleaners want to work for them in town.”

Stokes spoke with News 4 in March, and said Apex owed his business a little over $13,000 for honest work. Months later, Stokes said only a little over $4,000 has been paid and that his company’s point of contact within Apex has an email address that bounces back. Stokes said no one from within the company has reached out to make things right.

“I think it’s going to get worse,” said Stokes. “And with the ordeal with all the students that are moving in, you know, people are going to see that next year. They’re not going to want to move there.”

News 4 also caught up with Tiffany Citizen, who previously spoke to News 4 in March as well regarding issues with non-payment by Apex to her business Absolute Carpet and Tile Restoration. Citizen said her business’ experience has been dramatically different.

“They haven’t paid a dime,” said Citizen. “They did reach out and try and set up a payment arrangement, however, they fell through on making their first payment; and now we still have not heard anything from them.”

Citizen said the situation has been frustrating and that Apex owes her business a little over $50,000. Citizen said the payment issues take away from her businesses employees and what they can do to help them.

“We’re not franchised or anything,” said Citizen. “We’re just a small local business.”

Both Stokes and Citizen said that they’ve helped out other apartment complexes in Stillwater but have not experienced issues like they’ve seen and witnessed from the fallout.

News 4 also heard from small business owner Thursday, Melanie Davis of Reliable Clean LLC, who said that her business hadn’t experienced any problems working for Apex until after News 4’s initial report in March.

“I seen them on TV for not paying, but they were still paying me at the time,” said Davis.

Davis said the months that followed have been frustrating with correspondence back and forth with management trying to get paid in a timely manner for outstanding invoices. Davis said a majority of the invoices were paid less than an hour before an interview with News 4 Thursday, but one invoice that’s more than three months late still hasn’t been paid.

“There’s services being done and we deserve to get paid for it,” said Davis.

News 4 reached out to Apex management again Thursday with questions surrounding the payment issues and August 9 experience but never heard back.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond’s office confirmed it had received roughly 17 complaints about Apex on Perkins and Stillwater Police sent a letter August 12 about several code enforcement violations.

Citizen said she’s worried Apex could be playing with fire.

“It’s not going to get any better at all,” said Citizen. “It’s just going to keep being a snowball you know, catastrophe is what it is. It’s awful.”

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