CLEARWATER, Fla. — Twenty families have been fearing eviction for weeks and on Wednesday, some of them have been formally served.
It all started when a new property management company bought the property and now, tenants are working with a legal team to figure out what to do next.
The tight knit community of Westchester Apartments hasn't been the same since the start of the month when they got letters saying they had to get out by the middle of the month. Then, days later they received another notice saying they owed thousands of dollars.
"Me being here so long, it's hard for me to believe this is happening to us," Irene Penny, a tenant of eight year, said.
Of the twenty families, a handful of the tenants are facing their worst fear as they were served eviction notices Wednesday.
Penny says she'd rather just find a new place to live but it's not that easy.
"Everything is so expensive right now," she said. "I've been looking every day, I've been looking and looking and looking and just haven't found anything."
Brenda Gebhardt, an 18-year tenant, doesn't want to go anywhere.
"This is my home, my home sweet home, "said Gebhardt who is currently fighting cancer.
"I have the housing advisor looking for me but I have no place to go, it's either a tent or a shelter and I can't do it in my condition," she said.
A new property management company took over the complex at the start of the month. 10 Tampa Bay hasn't been able to reach them after repeated attempts but did connect tenants with Gulfcoast Legal Services.
Attorneys there question the legality of some of the notices they've been given since Feb. 1.
"The eviction defense itself is when you get to bring that to the court's attention and this is where a tenant gets to say, 'the landlord has to follow these steps before they could evict me, they didn't follow these steps, therefore please, court, tell the landlord they can't evict me," James Kushner, an attorney with Gulfcoast Legal Services, explained.
After 10 Tampa Bay's first story with the tenants, Clearwater police started investigating to see if the previous landlord accurately represented the payment status of tenants prior to selling the complex.