My name is Ilene mother of two children, daughter 4, son 6, my spouse and my service dog. My current situation/status as of 02/20/2015, Homeless! After 5 long years of renting from a large apartment complex owned by a very large corporation, my family and I spent the holidays packing. In august of 2012 I had moved from one side of Coralaire Apts., to a larger 2 bd apt., in the same complex. I had noticed off the back that something just wasn't right, the smell, the discoloration of areas around and under kitchen sinks and certain walls. I had discovered what could be and most had said too be possible toxic or black mold. I had sent in letters to calls to in person requests to get the problem looked at and or fixed. Two years went by and several requests and multiple hospital visits for my children for unexpected asthma diagnosis and allergy problems, I finally got the courage to call in to county code enforcement to see about getting my dwelling looked at and fixed since my requests were not getting answered by coralaires management. On November 4 2014, I made the what now seems, the worst mistake of my life, all behind trying to have a safe dwelling and healthy environment for my kids. After calling code enforcement the following day my apt.had been vandalized, then the following that weekiend, 11/10/14 management came unexpected to investigate the "problems" I had reported. After the initial inspection coralaires maintenance personnel worked on my "possible" mold situation for well over 11 days with a solution called 321 mold stat, but they explained that it wasn't mold. Before the 11th day, a private contractor from their company came to inspect the situation in my dwelkung, instructing maintenance to pull everything up & treat it, and then cover it up. Besides the "mold" problem I had unexpected roommates "Cockroaches", which started appearing. The management had sent their private pest control man in, which not only sprayed in my dwelling after written documentation was given to management to now use chemicals in my home due to my daughters severe allergies, but they entered without my permission went against the drs orders, violated my rights and privacy and lied to the main corporate office. After they covered up these problems and cleared report with code enforcement by initialing off by a third party that my such problems didn't exsist, but on 12/30/2014, my family and I were hand delivered a letter from coralaires lawyer telling me the two choices I had or matters would get even worse if I didn't agree to sign their demands. I had 7 months left on my lease they wanted us out by 01/26/2015 or if we did not sign to break our lease and vacate by the stated date, we would face certain issues which included but are also allegations,supposed drug trafficking and noise disturbances. For five years I had been an outstanding tenant paying rent on time never missing a payment, I even went as far as getting public records on behalf of my address and no such allegations or reports were ever made on my apartment were I resided. I had obtained copies of my file from the complex and after five years the only complaints that were documented were work orders that I had complained about asking for repairs to be made. I chose not to sign this demand from their lawyers and following the day after the last day to sign or face an eviction, I was served with a three day pay or quit after I just finished paying my normal on time payment. I found this to be very suspicious. I reached out for a loan until the request for my missing check could be traced and refunded I attempted to npay by the 3rd day, but was told my their weekend management that she could not take my payment and that if she did she would lose her job, she told me that she was sorry but that she could not help me. I understood, and it was clear that she was being threatned and to comply or her job would be risked. A week later i was servd a summons of an unlawful detainer and that I had five days to file an answer which I did on the 4th day. Its been two weeks since I filed and still no court date, I was also locked out of my apartment and they changed the locks and threw all my belongings in the trash, if I am correct don't they have to have an sheriff serve the eviction notice to vacate within 24 hours and isn that after you go to court and the judge decides the final decision? I am now on the streets with my two children my service dog and mynspouse. I am still waiting for a court date to be set and in the meantime, my children keep asking me, "Mommy when can we go home?" I hold them close and with as much hope as I try to have I can only cry and tell them the truth and that there is no home to go too anymore and how much mommy is sorry for doing what I thought was the safe and right thing to do and protect them and their health. My son keeps telling me that I don't have to be sorry and its not my fault, he keeps my hope alive that someone somewhere will hear my story and help stand up for what I thought was Our Rights, Tenant Rights. If I could just one thing I would tell everyone to be careful when standing up for their tenant rights and not make that phone call, if I knew I was going to thrown out on the streets for excersising my rights I wouldn't have made that call that day in november. I'm discouraged and my family is cold, was it worth it, I hope someone can reach out and explain why we have rights but only if youre willing to give up everything. What's so right about this.. Hope is all we have now....
