OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) – Omaha city leaders discussed City View, an apartment building that tenants say has bedbugs, mold and broken ceilings. KMTV spoke with lawmakers about bills concerning landlord and tenant Laws.
- Tenants at City View apartments say they are dealing with mold and bedbugs.
- The buildings issues were brought up at Tuesday's Pre-Council Meeting
- LAwmakers ahve introduced bills concerning landlord and tenant laws in the state
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
For weeks KMTV has been reporting issues at apartment buildings were tenants said they have gone without sufficient heat. Now different problems at another apartment building in Omaha has come to light.
Omaha City Council member are now looking into issues at City View apartments.
“Anybody that pays rent wants to live in a nice living condition, you can't live like that,” Tenant Ashley Nash said describing the holes in her apartment ceiling.
Tenants at city view apartment said they deal with mold, bugs, and a broken ceiling.
“Bedbugs roaches, ants, everything is really bad,” tenant Fredrick Peha said. “Holes in the wall, it's just terrible, terrible."
“There feces in the hallway, each floor has a different smell, there mold everywhere, stuff is falling apart in my apartment,” Nash said.
According to tenants, the eleven-story building also has unreliable elevators.
“The elevators will go down for multiple days and then there's fire on top of the elevators not working,” tenant Tony Rolf said. “I’m very active but if you are the elderly residents on my floor, you can't get out.”
Now, the city is looking into the building due to complaints.
City council Member Danny Begley said he's looking at what can be done after visiting the city view tower.
“There is a lot of grievance concern for the community and the people that live there that i intend on getting some answers on,” Begley said at a Pre-Council Meeting Tuesday.
KMTV spoke with Omaha area state Sen. John Cavanaugh about landlord tenant laws and what changes may come.
“The laws are set up to make the landlord tenants court efficient and that efficiency leads to favoring the plaintiff, which is often the landlord,” Cavanaugh said.
Cavanaugh introduced bill LB17, a bill that would prohibit landlords from charging unnecessary fees. According to Cavanaugh, there's room for improvement in the court systems when it comes to landlord-tenant laws.
"When you are using the court system which, is the arm of the state, to kick someone out of their home… We need to make sure that that that is not being done in violation of the law, so we need to make sure we’re affording some protection to tenants,” he said.
Cavanaugh said laws have improved over the last six years in the state.
The Residential Tenant Clean Slate Act, a bill that allows a dismissed eviction taken off their history has also been introduced in legislature.
