CLEARWATER, Fla. — Imagine waking up to a bucket of water crashing through your roof, just feet away from where you’re sleeping.
That's exactly what happened to a Clearwater couple Thursday night at the Park at Gibraltar apartments. Worried for their safety after what they described as “never-ending construction,” they turned to 10News for help.
“It happened overnight, a five gallon Home Depot bucket, which was apparently holding down a roof leak, crashed through the roof and left a huge hole,” Park at Gibraltar apartment resident Ryan Kadlek said. “The maintenance ended up putting drywall over the wet ceiling.”
Kadlek said that happened after he was already dealing with roof rafters being exposed for months over his balcony and part of his apartment.
“We’ve had squirrels get inside because of it. Every storm blows water inside and it warps the floor but this was the last straw,” Kadlek said.
Kadlek said construction problems have been nonstop since he moved to Park at Gibraltar apartments in Clearwater 11 months ago. When he would bring the issues up to management, they would say they are working on it but nothing would change.
ResProp Management manages the apartment complex and when 10News reached out asking them about resident safety issues they didn’t respond. 10News also reached out to the City of Clearwater who says Cameron Lakes LLC based in Colorado owns the building and ZMG Construction is doing the construction work on it.
The City of Clearwater said a complaint came in about the property in March 2018 where a resident said the ceilings were torn down but never fixed creating safety problems and concerns about asbestos. The city did cite them for porch and maintenance violations at the time but a month later when the permit to do renovations got approved they were then seen as “compliant” because they were working to address the problems.
“Multiple people need to be held accountable here from construction to whoever hired them to whoever is inspecting this quality of work,” Kadlek said. “One thing is clear though, we do not feel safe here because our ceiling collapsed about five feet away from where we sleep so we won’t be spending another night here.”
City of Clearwater inspectors went to check out the property after 10News called them Friday. They said they will notify the property owner of the code violation for the leaking roof. They said Kadlek will be moved to an apartment at one of their other properties.
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