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Squalid apartment complex condemned

Residents had been without water and power since Thursday

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By MARK  DOUGLAS | News Channel 8

Published: July 1, 2009

CLEARWATER - Tuesday was a day of mixed blessings for more than a dozen apartment tenants who have been living in sweltering heat and squalor without power or water since Thursday.

Pinellas County code inspectors condemned the apartments on Westminister Avenue as "unfit for human habitation," though many of the residents had found other places to live by then.

Code inspectors discovered a litany of violations, such as illegally rigged power, fetid drinking water, festering heaps of garbage patrolled by swarms of flies, broken windows and illegally cramped living conditions amid the eight tiny units inside four buildings owned by Lawrence Ayers, said county code enforcement Director Todd Myers.

Ayers, 42, hasn't been around since Progress Energy cut the power Thursday, and tenants say he won't return their phone calls. Attempts to track him down at his Safety Harbor home have been unsuccessful, too.

Social service agencies stepped in Monday with water, ice and hotel vouchers for the tenants, many of whom are disabled and too broke to pay new security deposits elsewhere.

Neighbor Eddie Gentile donated a generator, water, ice, and food. He found and put down a small deposit on a storage unit where Marsha Bassler, 59, and her mentally challenged son Chris can store their belongings while they find a new place to live.

"I am shocked that he even stopped, (that) he even cared because people nowadays don't do things like that," Bessler said.

Gentile's 7-year-old son Joshua, age 7, urged him to help after seeing one of the tenant's dogs trying to eat something in the dirt. After returning with food and water for the dog, Gentile couldn't turn away from the human suffering.

"I don't have a lot. He (Joshua) doesn't have a lot. But, it's just that they have nothing," Gentile said.

Tenants say Ayers, whom authorities say is responsible for the mess, isn't doing anything.

Marcus Chaconas paid Ayers $500 cash June 20 for the tiny room he shares with his son. That was just before Progress Energy cut the power.

Chaconas asked Ayers for a refund but got nowhere.

"He said, 'I can't do anything about it, and that was the end of the conversation," Chaconas said.

Along with its tenants, the fate of the apartment complex is uncertain. Deutsche Bank filed a foreclosure notice on the apartment complex May 11t, according to court records.

Ayers will have to respond to numerous code violations at a July 13 hearing, Myers said. The county could levy fines as high as $5,000 a day unless the violations are corrected.

Pinellas County condemned another apartment Ayers owns in Oldsmar June 20.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has referred charges for utility theft in that case to the State Attorney's Office for possible criminal prosecution. Deputies are still investigating similar allegations at the complex on Westminister.

Among other things, Progress Energy says someone wired Bessler's apartment so that she was paying for another unit's electricity in addition to her own.

Her power bill in October for her tiny apartment amounted to $318.98, something she could hardly afford to pay on her disability income, along with the $720 rent she gave Ayers every month.

"It's just a sad story, it really is," said Gentile.

Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at (727) 709-2753

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