ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — Tenants are speaking out about moldy living conditions at the Antica Apartments in St. Augustine, and some say they’ve already met with a lawyer.
Martin Waverley and his wife moved into the apartment complex in April to help care for their young grandchildren, but they say last Friday they began to notice mold coming through their air ducts.
“It was just like a horror movie,” Waverley said. “It was like all of a sudden this black stuff starts going all the way across the ceiling.”
He said the main service supervisor came over and told them they had to pack a bag and leave immediately.
Photos he shared showed just how quickly the mold grew inside of his unit.
Waverley used a petri dish to show how the mold grew after taking a swab off his air duct and his couch.
In just days, the petri dish was full of its own ecosystem.
He says the complex’s senior maintenance worker told him the mold was due to the A/C unit.
“He said it was sucking too much air out of the room, and with that humidity, that’s what caused the black mold up in the collector box,” Waverley said.
He says he’s most worried about the health of his wife and his grandchildren.
“They’re eight and ten — they didn’t ask for this,” Waverley said. “The whole reason we moved out here was to take care of them, and now I’m letting them down.”
Multiple other tenants echoed the same concerns.
One walked us around his apartment and showed us how mold grew just a few days after having his unit professionally cleaned.
We brought all of these issues to the leasing office.
The complex’s senior property manager met us with, “You actually have to leave the property. This is a private property.”
We asked if they wanted a chance to respond to any of the allegations we’ve heard from the tenants.
After she spoke with the regional manager over the phone, we were asked to send all of our questions to her email address.
Action News Jax is still waiting for their response.
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks]
[SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter]
Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
