AKRON, Ohio — Breianna Schillinger says living in the Hill Chateau Apartments in Akron's North Hill neighborhood feels like torture. She claims she hasn't been able to use her toilet in months.
"I'm extremely frustrated," she told 3News. "We can't put tissue down the toilet, you know? It's gotten to that point."
She pays a neighbor down the hall to use the bathroom, but the toilet isn't her only problem.
"All the patch work that was done on the ceiling and the walls, it wasn't painted, it wasn't sanded," she said. "My kitchen sink is detached from the wall, and they didn't fix that for months,” she adds.
As we interviewed Schillinger outside the building, another resident came up saying she has issues with her apartment, too. She asked to remain anonymous.
"There are drawers that I cannot use. There is a hole in my pantry where rats come in and out," she stated. "I taped it, and I can hear it all night."
The woman says the scariest moment while living at Hill Chateau came when her child found a syringe in the cabinet.
"I was terrified. My heart dropped," she recalled. "I literally started crying."
The owner of the property is Kevin Saunders. He told WKYC over the phone that is the first time he's hearing about some of these issues, adding, "We are available for our residents. When we receive maintenance requests, we respond to them promptly and to the best of our ability."
However, tenants say it takes a while to hear from him.
"He takes two days to respond to my messages," the anonymous woman we spoke to expressed.
As for Schillinger, she says Saunders is in the process of evicting her and her daughter for failing to pay rent. She claims she stopped paying because the issues weren't fixed.
While Schillinger doesn't have anywhere to go, she still cares about the people who live here, and now wants to warn others.
"There's other people that live here, and there's other people that may see this building and see an apartment for rent and want to move in here," she said. "I don't want them to move in here under the same pretenses that I did."
A spokesperson from the city of Akron gave us a statement that reads:
"The particular address you mentioned is on our radar and we have been in contact with the owners for a variety of issues for about a year.
"We do have an open file on the property and open orders on 4 units. The owners have been working to address the rodent problem and have made progress but there’s still work needed. Summit County Public Health has been involved as well."