Fontenelle Hills tenants still left with unanswered maintenance requests

BELLEVUE, Neb– Fontenelle Hills tenants say they are dealing with unfit living conditions that Elevate, their property management has continued to ignore. What further steps can these tenants take?

• Fontenelle Hills tenants organized after months of ignored maintenance requests
• The tenants are waiting for a response from Elevate but say they will take further action
• Tenants have a couple of option when dealing with unanswered requests or unfit living conditions

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Earlier this month tenants of Fontenelle Hills Apartments organized after experiencing months of what they say are unfit living conditions and unanswered maintenance requests.

KMTV is looking into what rights these tenants have and what actions they can take to fix these problems.

Fontanelle Hills Apartment Tenants say they have a multiple issues with the current conditions of their apartment complex. They told KMTV things like broken air conditioners, leaking plumbing and collapsed roofs have all been ignored by their property management.

The tenants sent a letter to the property management, Elevate, outlining their issues and asking management to respond the issues that still have not been resolved. So what further actions can these tenants take?

Caitlin Cedfelt, supervising attorney for Legal Aid of Nebraska says these tenants have a few options depending on what kind of things need to be fixed.

"Air conditioning in the summer would be considered an essential service so in that case there is a way for tenants to address with the landlord and get what’s called replacement services so if they have to stay somewhere else, they could potentially go somewhere else pay those cost and then by notice to the landlord deduct those costs from rent," Cedfelt said.

Cedfelt said other issues that aren't considered essential can still be handled in a certain way. Tenants can send a letter to their landlord asking for the issue to be fixed within fourteen days… if it's not the tenants can break their lease.

But some tenants say they are experiencing unexpected charges to their accounts or paying for month to month leases when they signed annual ones and Cedfelt says this something tenants should contact legal aid or an attorney for right away.

"as a matter of landlord tenant law as well as a matter of contract law you need to be paying for what's in the contract right so if you have a full year lease and it doesn't contemplate a monthly fee you shouldn't be paying that," Cedfelt said.

Nebraska Legal Aid has a handbook on its website covering tenant issues.

The tenants gave Elevate 14 days to respond to their requests before they take further action.

KMTV has reached out to Elevate four times and have not heard back.