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Tenant speaks out with claims of misleading advertisements by westside Jacksonville apartment

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — UPDATE: We spoke with Mia Manning, the manager at Camelot Gardens. She says she has reached out to both tenants after seeing our story and says they will be replacing Snoot's carpet, drain her AC unit and replace her dishwasher. The issues at Forney's apartment are now fixed.

Original Story:

“It’s a war zone. This is Afghanistan. This is a war zone,” Dominque Smoot said, describing her new home at Camelot Gardens Apartments, located on the west side.

The Alabama native moved to Jacksonville more than a month ago to be closer to her family.

After a Google search and tour of a model unit at Camelot Gardens, she signed a lease and prepared to move in.

“I said ooh, it was pretty. It had blue water pools. It had fitness centers. They had three or four stars, and I was like, I can deal with this,” Smoot said. “When I got here, it was not what was on the internet.

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Her unit had holes in the wall, gnats in appliances — like her dishwasher, refrigerator and freezer -- and a leaking air conditioner that left her carpet soaked.

“I’ve called them [the leasing office] over 15 times. They came out maybe twice.” Smoot said.

She kept a written log of her interactions with the leasing office. Smoot believes she was misled.

Another renter, Roxanne Forney, had similar issues.

“I can’t keep living this way. It’s very stressful,” she said.

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Forney said the apartment complex staff recently moved her and her father to one of the newer units, after her old unit grew mold. Her current apartment has a hole in the ceiling.

“We want stuff fixed,” Forney explained. “We want to be normal.”

Action News Jax spoke with the manager, Mia Manning, who said she was not aware of these kinds of complaints and does not have any open maintenance requests matching those descriptions.

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“We are slowly making repairs as we can according to what’s being presented to us,” Manning explained. “We actually are doing what we can.”

The apartment complex currently has an open complaint from July 2018 from the fire marshal.

The violation is described as "life safety issues", but does not give further detail.

We contacted to the City of Jacksonville on Wednesday and  Friday to get the full fire marshal report, along with any other violations, but have not received those documents.

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