Renters at several Vesta Realty properties in Oklahoma are facing a breakdown in basic services, with trash piling up outside apartment buildings and repeated warnings that water service could be shut off. For tenants who pay their rent and utility bills on time, the situation shows how quickly housing insecurity can spill over into everyday life.
What's happening?
Drexel Flats tenant Cassandra Rhodes says notices about interrupted water service have become a familiar sight at the Oklahoma City complex. After returning home, she found yet another city warning on her door, stating that the water could soon be disconnected, KGOU reported.
"It's every month, and he didn't pay the bill again," Rhodes said.
Issues tied to Vesta appear to extend beyond Drexel Flats. At Tulsa properties owned by the company, tenants say dumpsters have gone missing, trash has accumulated, and management has offered little explanation.
At Barcelona Apartments in Tulsa, longtime resident Tyler Brittain put his view of the company plainly: "It's been crazy quiet. Vesta has basically abandoned the apartment complex."
The company is also facing legal scrutiny. Vesta chief executive officer Marc Kulick is being sued by a business partner who claims he used the business to enrich himself while hiding its finances from investors. Vesta declined a request for an interview, though an attorney for the company told News on 6/KOTV that Vesta Realty had been unexpectedly dropped by its waste management provider.
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Why does it matter?
Legal experts say renters in Oklahoma can be left with little leverage. Victoria Wilson, co-director of Oklahoma City University's Tenant Rights Clinic, said the state's landlord-tenant statute is vague enough that it is often interpreted in ways that favor landlords, while Legal Aid Services Oklahoma attorney Greg Beben said tenants are "innocent third-parties" when a landlord fails to pay a city utility bill.
For Rhodes, moving elsewhere is not a workable solution right now. She said she lives on a fixed income, and her daughter, who is on disability, lives in the same complex.
What's being done?
Some cities have already taken formal action against Vesta properties. Stillwater labeled the Vesta-owned Remington Ranch apartment complex a public nuisance in February after months without heat and water, and on July 9, Jenks declared 727 Lofts and THRIVE Apartments a nuisance over accumulated trash.
Beben said Oklahoma renters may have one immediate legal remedy when a landlord fails to provide an essential service: ending the lease.
"If the landlord is not providing an essential service, and, of course, water is a very essential service, tenants under the Oklahoma Residential Landlord-Tenant Act would have the right to immediately terminate their lease with written notice," he said, according to KGOU.
Beben added, "Unfortunately, for a lot of tenants who are renting from Vesta, a lot of those tenants might be lower-income tenants."
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