WASHINGTON (WUSA9) D.C. residents are suing their landlord for unsafe conditions.
"This is how I feel, like poop - to put it mildly - on the bottom of their shoe!" said Ruth Barnwell.
Barnwell is ready for a fight with her landlord. "It's a disgrace how they treat us," she said, "We pay rent faithfully. I'm never behind on my rent."
The 71-year-old is just one of 3 tenants left in her apartment building overrun by rats, roaches even bed bugs.
"I said I don't have them and I don't want them so fumigate the whole building," she explained, "and they didn't so in July of 2015, guess who got bed bugs."
Barnwell had to dump her mattress and all her living room furniture. And when we stopped by the apartments on Friday, we saw crews removing sheet rock covered in black mold; emptying out the dozens of boarded up units that had filth, more mold and graffiti inside.
"There are also security issues," Gary Smith as he walked by on Alabama, "you got broken windows in the back and people sneaking in so it was just unsafe. You can look at building and see how worn down it is."
The city slapped the landlord Bethesda based Sanford Capital LLC with 77 code violations and is now suing them for neglect. We found a property manager on site but he refused to answer our questions.
"It is my right to live in a safe and habitable place," Barnwell said. She said the landlord tried to buy her out but she's not budging.
"I was offered $1,500.00 and I said, ‘do I look like I was stamped across the head with F-O-O-L written on my forehead? You can talk to my attorney'," she explained, "you get rid of the leader and everything else goes down? I don't think so. I'm not going to let that happen. Like I told them, ‘I'm not selling my people out.' We're going to stick to the end!"
Barnwell will testify in court Monday when the Attorney General will fight to get a third party receiver to clean up the properties at the owner's expense. Bethesda-based Sanford Capital LLC did not return call for comment.
According to DC law (Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act), the tenants have a right to purchase their property and form a co-operative.
They hope to do so either in a new building or a renovated one.
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