Grimy apartments with bugs, mold greet NC college students moving in, residents say
Housing units with bugs and mold greeted college students on move-in day in North Carolina, residents say.
Photos and video on Twitter show units filled with grime near the campus of East Carolina University, which is roughly 85 miles east of Raleigh. Refrigerators, floors and bathtubs are among soiled areas that can be seen in the social media posts.
Kim Chapple tried to clean her daughter’s room for six hours at one of the three off-campus complexes where Greenville inspectors found violations, WITN reported. The apartment and townhome complexes included 33 East, Copper Beech and Paramount 3800, according to the TV station.
The three complexes didn’t immediately respond to McClatchy News’ requests for comment on Tuesday afternoon. The city of Greenville didn’t immediately share details about the violations.
“There was mold in there,” Chapple said of her daughter’s unit at 33 East. “The filter did not look like it had been changed in years. When we arrived, the apartments were absolutely filthy.”
One social media user who posted pictures of stained bathroom fixtures and walls in the same complex said workers later arrived to clean and paint.
Janelle Jacobs, an ECU student and Copper Beech resident, said her unit had a mildew smell and wasn’t fully furnished as expected, according to The East Carolinian student newspaper.
“THE MOVE IN AT COPPER BEECH IS A HOT MESS,” Jacobs wrote on Twitter. “MY APARTMENT ALONG WITH SO MANY OTHERS IS NOT EVEN IN SHAPE TO BE MOVED INTO!!!”
Photos from the complex showed “bugs, dirty carpets, broken furniture, missing windows and other damage,” WNCT and other news outlets reported.
At Paramount 3800, a mom said she found messy conditions outside her daughter’s apartment and fixtures that didn’t work inside.
“I believe due to Covid 19 and the concern of this... these apartments should have been deep cleaned prior to anyone moving into them, as well as, the outside of the apartment building,” she wrote on the complex’s Facebook page.
This story was originally published August 11, 2020 at 1:40 PM.
