SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – A Southfield apartment building caught fire a few days before Christmas.
Many tenants are still living in hotel rooms, but they say a charge for January’s rent is still appearing on their accounts.
The fire at one of the buildings at the Sutton Place Apartments displaced eight families on Dec. 22.
Many had lived inside the building for years.
“When I opened up that door, it was already filled with smoke, and I saw a bunch of firemen rushing up the stairs,” Tiyonna Greene said.
Greene and her 8-year-old son lived there for five years.
Another tenant who spoke to Local 4 lived there for three years.
“I screamed, ‘Let’s go, it’s a fire!’ and the smoke went down my throat,” a tenant said.
The tenants met with management a few days after the fire, but they say they didn’t get their questions answered and didn’t hear from management for days afterward.
One tenant sent a message to management, expressing concern with the lack of communication.
“Despite being advised that daily updates would be provided by you or management, there has been little to no meaningful information shared regarding the status of the affected units or next steps for displaced residents,” the message said.
Still living in hotel rooms, on Jan. 2, tenants were sent a message telling them to disregard any charges for January’s rent, which would be removed the following Monday.
That was two Mondays ago. Tenants tell me the charges are still there, and the late fees are piling up.
“This is the most recent one that I got this morning, stating that I owe them $3,000 now for the rent,” Greene said.
It’s all due Feb. 1.
One message says, “Your payment is overdue. Please settle your account.”
Just to be sure, Local 4 asked Greene to verify she’d paid December’s rent.
She showed Local 4 a bank statement showing she paid it on Dec. 13, long before the fire.
Local 4 approached management about the issue.
“They say they are being charged rent, but they are not here,” Local 4 asked.
“They are not being charged rent,” the apartment’s community manager said.
“The portal is saying a few of them owe this past month’s rent and the late fees that have accrued,” Local 4 said.
“No,” the community manager said.
“So they are not?” Local 4 said.
“They’ve all been informed, and they have in writing that they are not being charged,” the community manager said.
As far as getting their items, they were told they needed to sign this waiver to get inside, releasing the apartment’s company and management from any “claims, property damage, injuries, sicknesses, lost income, death or expenses (including attorney fees) arising out of or in any way related to my access of the Property.”
Local 4 asked management about that, too.
“They had to sign a waiver to go and get their stuff?” Local 4 asked.
“I am not going to answer anything like that,” the community manager said. The manager added that the information is confidential and related to renters.
“By signing this, we are giving our rights away to be able to fight them legally or just in general,” Greene said.
In addition to speaking to property management, Local 4 also reached out to the company that owns Sutton Place, but has not heard back.