Residents of a Madison Property Management home on West Washington Avenue say the company failed to attend to a sewage backup in their basement last week.
Nate Lustig, a resident of the home, said he and his roommates smelled what they assumed was a dead animal in the furnace in late January. He said they alerted MPM of the situation but the company did not attend to the problem in a timely fashion. Officials from MPM denied mishandling the tenants' request.
Rachel Govin, a corporate counsel representative for MPM, said the residents' allegations are false and completely inaccurate."" She said in a phone call to Lustig Feb. 16 she would ""take action"" if he relayed false information to media outlets.
Lustig, 23, said one of his roommates, Mike Bourgeois, 21, first noticed ""a really strong"" smell Jan. 20.
Lustig, who was out of town at the time, advised Bourgeois to open all the windows and to try to locate the source of the stench.
The smell spread to other areas of the house by Jan. 23.
""It was in the upstairs kitchen, the downstairs kitchen, a couple of other places. It was bad enough that we had the windows open,"" Lustig said.
The same day, Lustig said MPM employees showed the house to prospective tenants and his roommate mentioned the smell to an employee.
According to an e-mail from Govin, the residents did not follow protocol. She said they are required to report maintenance issues to MPM by either sending an e-mail, calling the office or filling out a maintenance request form.
According to Lustig, Shelly, an employee of MPM whose last name is not listed in e-mails, visited the home Feb. 6 for a routine annual inspection. During the inspection, the residents mentioned the smell to Shelly, who said the smell might have been from a dirty apartment. However, Lustig said the apartment was not dirty at the time.
According to Lustig, Shelly canceled her initial visit set for Feb. 9 and rescheduled it for Feb. 12.
Govin said Shelly rescheduled her visit only after she realized the owner of the residence, Dan Rigney, was taking care of the situation.
When the stench grew worse Feb. 8, the residents immediately contacted Rigney. He advised the roommates to check the basement for a sewage backup.
""Over 50 percent of the basement was covered in an inch deep of water,"" Lustig said.
""Dan called a plumber to fix the problem and remove all of the 'solids' from the basement floor [Feb. 9].""
According to Lustig, the plumber said the basement was one of the worst he had ever seen.
