Resident apartments feel 'unsafe' after rain comes through roof

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The big storms last week forced about a dozen people out of a Minneapolis apartment, and they don’t think it’s safe to go back yet.

Now they’re battling a landlord who seems hard to track down.

The only people at the building on Tuesday were a couple of guys who seemed to be doing work in a vacant apartment and some tenants going in and out.
But for six days now, almost nobody has lived in this building because they feel it’s dangerous.

"All of this was water damage here and over there," said Amelia Cross, pointing all over her apartment on Glenwood Avenue, near Penn Avenue.

Cross is scared of what’s in her ceiling.

"This bubble just keeps getting bigger and bigger," she said, pointing to a piece of the ceiling bubbling down and showing signs of possible water damage.

She sees water damage in every room of her apartment, especially the second bedroom where her children sleep.

"It'll fall on top of them while they're sleeping," she said. "So I know I don't want my kids here. I don't want to be here."

Neighbors in the building’s other apartments are also worried about the lingering effects after they say the roof gave way and water poured into almost every room.

"My wife and I don't feel comfortable coming back here with our cats when we don't know if it's all clear and he's being very shifty on if it is all clear," said James Sansovich.

He says landlord Mark Baird hired someone to do roof repairs and dryer weather has given them a reprieve. But they’re still seeing new water stains, and the attic is soaked.

Sansovich says Baird offered to pay everyone’s living expenses until he could have repairs finished.

And he did send them some cash, but not enough to cover their extended hotel stays.

"Every time I bring up that he said via phone $200 a day, he's just sending a screenshot of a Google search where he searched ‘do landlords have to pay for tenants hotels,’" Samsonite says of his landlord.

Baird lives just a few blocks away, but he wasn’t home Tuesday and he didn’t respond to phone messages left by FOX 9.

Tenants say he’s told them he’s in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, the property registered nine violations in two city of Minneapolis inspections this year.

The city says they’re all resolved, including the addition of smoke alarms, although text messages show Baird recommended disabling the alarms when they went off after the flooding last week.

Cross says the place feels unsafe and that’s on Baird.

"He should be financially obligated to provide safe housing for each of his tenants that are going through this right now," she said.

‘Who’s actually responsible for the relocation expenses?’ is a question that might have to be answered in court.

Tenants tell us they’ve contacted the city to register new complaints, and they reached out to Home Line, which offers free legal services for renters.