Senior tenants' nightmare: Cockroaches
Renters at low-income complex say little being done, but they can't afford to move out
For months, 83-year-old Bonnie McCord of Oakley would pull on her rubber gloves each evening and spend hours meticulously scrubbing her apartment, hoping to rid it of the cockroaches that would scamper across her floors, in her cupboards, on her walls and across her arms as she sat on her recliner.
“I was washing down every single thing, mopping the floors before I went to bed, wiping down everything with Clorox because their poop looks like pepper,” she said. “You have to wipe it because you can't see it.”
But by the next morning, the resilient pests would be back in what seemed like armies yet again infesting her Oakley apartment.
“They're in everything. They're in the furniture. They're in the appliances, the refrigerator, the stove, the microwave and the dishwasher,” McCord said. “Even the shower curtain.”
Exhausted, the retired widow said she finally threw her hands up about a month ago and agreed to temporarily stay with a friend downstairs so professional exterminators could treat her home and she could get some rest before continuing the roach battle, which now has been going on for almost a year.
McCord is just one of numerous seniors at the complex — some of them spoke at this week's City Council meeting — who say there has been an ongoing problem with cockroaches. But they also have problems with leaking pipes, overflowing toilets, dirty stairwells and hallways, maintenance delays and a lack of security in some parts of the 208-unit senior complex, which is part of a larger complex with hundreds of other apartments for families collectively called The Oaks.
McCord pays $1,116 a month for her tiny, one-bedroom apartment at The Commons at Oaks Grove, but she says she has gotten behind on rent with medical bills and storage unit costs piling up as she has had to move many of her belongings out of the apartment. She vows to pay it all back.
McCord said she complained repeatedly to management about the roaches, and they recently began professionally exterminating her apartment; however, when she returned to retrieve clothes last week, the locks had been changed — apparently because it's still uninhabitable.
Calls and emails by this newspaper to the local property manager's office and the corporate office of WinnResidential, which manages all The Oaks' apartment buildings, went unanswered. However, a spokesman for the nonprofit developer, Corporation for Better Housing of Los Angeles, which is a limited managing partner, said the company was “disheartened this matter has become sensationalized by misinformation.”
“The obligation to provide safe and habitable living conditions for all our residents is a commitment we take seriously,” Erin Mathias said in an email. “Because this is a legal matter, we will not be commenting any further on the misinformation of facts presented on social media or to others.”
Mathias offered no further explanation, and lawyers for the nonprofit did not return repeated calls.
Danielle Navarro, Oakley assistant city manager, said The Oaks apartment buildings are owned by different limited partnerships and all have scheduled maintenance, with some dictated by residents' needs.
Navarro said that the city's code enforcement division has had 20 complaint calls to The Oaks in the past year, three of which generated cases. Last week, the pest control company asked for an additional week to place traps with a fogger and gel in McCord's apartment and planned to be onsite twice monthly to track the source of the roaches, she said.
Oakley City Councilwoman Shannon Shaw visited the complex to see for herself recently after community activist Mike Dupray posted a video about McCord's cockroaches on Facebook.
Shaw, who manages senior housing in Pittsburg, said that she saw some problems and shared insights and resources with the tenants.
“Instantly, when you walked in, the smell was something less than desirable,” she said of Building 59. “The first thing I noticed was the lack of maintenance.”
The Corporation for Better Housing received funding in 2006 to develop the housing in stages through the federal Low Income Housing Tax Credit program, which requires that a certain number of units be set aside for low-income households. As part of the LIHTC program, the properties undergo inspections every three years for the first 15 years.
But according to Joe DeAnda, communications director at the state Treasurer's Office, which oversees such inspections, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, some were completed through file audits instead of on-site visits.
Building 59 last had a physical inspection in 2019, followed by a file audit in 2022, and is now on a sevenyear inspection schedule. Because it is now aware of the problems, the state will be doing a physical inspection soon, he said.
McCord's nightmares began shortly after her husband died last year, she said, noting two “floods” — from an overflowing toilet and kitchen sink — led to problems she “never would have imagined.”
“After that, the cockroaches just came,” she said.
McCord moved for a month to another apartment last year while maintenance looked for leaks, repainted her apartment, replaced baseboards and a window and installed new flooring.
They never did find the cause of the original water leak, McCord said. But the roaches had found her.
“I lived with the mess for a year,” she said, noting she finally packed up, cleaned and sterilized most of her belongings and rented out two storage units. Some furniture — like her two infested recliners — will have to be tossed.
McCord saw some hope when a professional exterminator visited last year and again this past month, but when maintenance bombed her apartment to kill the roaches, she had to tell them to stop because it irritated her lungs.
Polly Seabury, 58, says she had similar problems in another building when pipes burst in an apartment above her, flooding her place ankle-deep.
“They did not walk one foot in my door, and I was letting them know all my furniture got messed up,” the former tenant said of the management.
Micki Nicol, 75, who lives in a nearby senior building in the same complex, said roaches are “an ongoing problem,” worsened by water leaks and nests that go untreated.
“I have reams of emails that I have sent to the management,” she said of maintenance problems.
Drains are constantly backing up in the laundry room, and the dirty garbage chute attracts roaches, Nicol said.
“We're not asking for anything out of line, not asking for anything you know that shouldn't be considered normal management and care of these buildings,” she said.
But Nicol said she's stuck now. “I can't afford to move,” she said.
Jackie Rider says she was one of the lucky ones, having lived in the same building as McCord but later being offered a different lower-cost apartment in the same complex.
And though she has been waiting for refrigerator handles since April, overall she said the building is maintained better than her former one.
Rider recalled the pantry fly infestation and roaches in the community room of her old building — still visible today — where residents would meet for weekly coffee and crafts and occasional potlucks.
“We were promised these things when we moved in,” she said. “We were supposed to have a gym and we don't. We were supposed to have security; the gate, it never works properly.”
During her visit to the complex, Shaw also noticed potential fire safety hazards like a trash chute door that was so dirty it was stuck open, nonworking emergency backup lighting, as well as common-area issues like missing screens, water damage on laundry room walls and no security cameras in one building though present in others.
Shaw said all the residents she visited spoke of not being able to get things fixed.
The councilwoman has contacted the city and others to make them aware and code enforcement will return to inspect things before McCord moves back in.
“My idea is let's get as many eyes on this as possible, and get our seniors safe and decent housing,” she said.
Dupray said the lack of maintenance is even harder to swallow considering the rent hikes planned for October.
“They are having to stay in the same place, but their rents are going up and nothing's being done,” he said.
McCord, meanwhile, said she's hoping for a different, lower-cost apartment.
“I never thought I would live like this,” she said.