00:00Sixty-two and three-bedroom Carlton Place HDC Apartments at Leotard Street, San Fernando
00:07sold for between $850,000 to $1 million each, according to residents.
00:14And three years after moving in, they tell TV6 News it's been a nightmare dealing with
00:20serious structural and maintenance issues they can no longer accept.
00:24Chief among their problems, according to spokesperson for the community and resident, Roland Redhead,
00:31is the plumbing within the three five-story buildings.
00:35We have had a lot of plumbing blowouts, which is where the pressure of the system is too high.
00:43And the design of the building is where the plumbing is brought to the building and it
00:49goes up through the center of the building.
00:51What that means is that every time we have a leaking pipe or a pipe that blows out, it
00:58floods the building.
00:59It comes down through the building, through every apartment below it, which means that
01:04if somebody on the top floor experiences a leak, everybody below them would get affected.
01:11Videos show the severe leaks experienced by residents countless times over the past couple of years.
01:17A legal letter once sent to HTC listed defective plumbing with substandard T-joints connecting
01:24the water supply stack, water pump malfunctions, waste water backing up in bathroom sinks as
01:30some of their grievances, with plumbing repairs costing residents over $100,000 in the past two
01:37years.
01:38The water comes from the tanks to the pumps, and these pumps build the pressure to about
01:44100 PSI, which is where the problem begins because we had to change this particular arm
01:51probably four times.
01:54The pipes new because actually yesterday we just did a repair on this, and this section
01:59here we had to do a few times as well.
02:02Basically, we have on this side our PVC graveyard, so all these fittings were the debris from all
02:11the jobs we had to do to fix the issues with the pump.
02:14Where there is moisture, there is mold, and residents say that, too, is a serious health
02:19concern of the over 140 people, including dozens of children, who live here.
02:26The person is really suffering here because the mold has become unbearable.
02:30Every single occupied apartment in this complex, which we have 60 apartments and about 54 occupied,
02:39and all of these apartments have mold, persons are going to the hospital, they are getting
02:45sick, we are persons with ice, man.
02:47Residents claim, apart from black mold infestation, the leaks have destroyed the fire panel, leaving
02:53them without a smoke or fire warning system.
02:56There's no fire escape on these multi-story buildings either, and a termite infestation in
03:02one of the buildings.
03:03Residents say while they pay a $700 monthly maintenance fee into a self-file, they have been
03:09a self-run maintenance company.
03:10It was expected to upkeep the surroundings and do minor repairs, while these major problems,
03:16they believe, should be the responsibility of HTC.
03:21Not just give a solution, but we want them to fix the issue, right?
03:25The water pumps, which we have been dealing with for two years, and all the leaks, is very
03:32expensive to redesign and do a new system there.
03:36We believe HTC should be responsible for redesigning and rebuilding the plumbing system, right?
03:45All the persons who would have lost a lot of items within all the floods and stuff over time,
03:51those persons should be compensated for those losses.
03:55We contacted the HTC on these matters, but up to news time, did not receive a response.
04:01Cindy Ragubatika Singh, TV6 News.
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