DENVER — What was supposed to be a simple laundry room repair has turned into a nightmare for residents of a Congress Park apartment complex who’ve now been out of their units for almost a week.
Residents of the seven-story Liv on Steele apartments near East 14th Avenue and Steele Street learned of the power outage Wednesday evening, after RedPeak Properties crews repaired several of the building's laundry rooms. One of the washers in those laundry rooms appears to have flooded the building’s electrical box, according a series of emails the company has sent since the outage.
On Thursday, the management company offered tenants a $125 rent credit if they had to book a hotel or another rental unit for the night. The same note offered a credit of the day’s rent to other tenants who made other arrangements to stay with friends and family.
The outage lasted through the weekend, with the company emailing tenants on Sunday afternoon suggesting tenants make claims to their renter’s insurance policies.
“At this time, we encourage you all to file a renter’s insurance claim for accommodations and any loss during this time,” the email read.
Tenants like Shelby Hoffman told 9NEWS they believed the email about renter's insurance indicated the apartment company was not going to pay for hotel accommodations.
“The emails that we're getting from RedPeak say that this is an inconvenience, when it's truly just uninhabitable,” Hoffman said.
What to do if your power or heat goes out in your rental unit
“As a Colorado renter, you are entitled to a clean habitable place to live,” said renter's rights attorney Zach Neumann with the Community Economic Defense Project.
Neumann said the biggest mistake he sees tenants make is not notifying their landlord of the problem as required by Colorado’s Warranty of Habitability law.
“It's really not their fault because it's a confusing and a complicated process,” he said. “They either don't email their landlord right away, or they email their landlord, but not at the email address described in the lease, so that it doesn't actually count as notification, or they email their landlord at the right address, but they don't say you can enter my unit.”
The residents at Liv on Steele don’t have that same obligation to notify their landlord, as the landlord already knows about the problem, but Neumann said it never hurts to still send a note in case of any legal challenge down the road.
“If they are unable to fix (the problem) quickly, and kind of get you to a place where your apartment is livable, then fairly soon, they need to provide an alternative place for you to live,” he said.
In this case, the residents were offered rent credit in exchange for their hotel stays. He said rental insurance won’t necessarily pay for outside accommodations, but it may cover the cost of expenses for spoiled food in refrigerators without power or the cost of meals that can’t be cooked in hotel rooms.
“Generally speaking, those policies are designed to cover those kinds of expenses,” Neumann said.
After 9NEWS contacted RedPeak to inquire about the issues tenants brought up, the company sent out an email to all tenants clarifying that it plans to reimburse people for hotel stays and credit rent to others who found free accommodations.
“Our intention is to reimburse you all during this outage for your hotel expenses or credit you for days of rent if you choose to stay with friends/family until this issue is resolved,” the email said. “We will continue to provide updates as we receive them.”
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