Complex residents complaining of sewage, mold

HOUSTON For some people there, they say the conditions are so bad that they're moving out. And people are questioning why things haven't been fixed.

The residents are living off Aldine Mail Route and Northwood Forest. Neighbors say the problems have been going on for the past year, and it seems to be getting only worse. Some even wonder if the issues will ever be fixed.

"I smell sewage. There's mold in my apartment. There's everything in my apartment," resident Diunte Ford said. "They don't fix nothing."

Ford has complained just about every day for the past several months. She's not the only one at the Northwood Villa Apartments in northeast Houston that's complained.

An open pipe, residents say, spews raw sewage. We found other uncapped pipes.

"It's nasty. It stinks outside," resident Lakenya Clifton said. "They can't come outside and play like regular little kids."

Some neighbors invited us into their apartment where the carpeting -- almost all of it -- was wet.

Chevoya Jackson says he'd had to move his clothes out of his closet because of water leaking and mold. He also says he's moved out something else -- his two children.

"This happened and when we noticed it, it was small, and we told them to come clean it up and they didn't," resident Chevoya Jackson said. "And like all the mold in the bathroom, I can't even give my kids baths in the tub because there's mold in the tub."

We noticed some apartments didn't have air-conditioning, and some air conditioning units worked while others did not.

We tried to get answers and were met with locked doors and closed blinds at the apartment management office, so we called the Harris County Public Health Department to report the problems.

But it may be too late for Deandre Haynes, who says he's already moving out. He says his daughter is too sick to stay here.

"And come to find out when I took her to the hospital, the doctor says she had been exposed to some sort of bacteria," Haynes said.

Haynes told Eyewitness News he thought the condition of the apartment contributed to her sickness.

County officials said they already issued a citation to the apartment complex for the uncapped pipes. They also took water samples to be tested. The results will determine what other citations, if any, will be issued.