Tenant’s fight over living conditions, rent ends with eviction

By Gerry May

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    SHREVEPORT, Louisiana (KTBS) — A woman’s battle with her apartment management over living conditions and the rent ended with her eviction order in Shreveport City Court.

“It’s time for you to move,” Judge Pamela Lattier told Ella Strawbridge to close a brief hearing.

Strawbridge refused to pay rent since October when her apartment management refused her request for help. That rent was more than $1,000 for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath apartment at Riverside Oaks, located on Southfield Road near East Kings.

But Strawbridge says she was down to basically half a bathroom. She couldn’t use her bathroom’s toilet because, she says, it’s likely to overflow. She flushed her toilet and showed us how the water rose to near the top of the bowl.

“You really can’t do the number two. And this isn’t just sometimes. It’s been since I’ve been here since May,” she said.

She showed us how water also backs up in her bathtub when she flushes the toilet. And she says the shower in the other bathroom doesn’t work.

“I said put me in another apartment and I’ll catch my rent up. Because this apartment is not worth renting,” Strawbridge says of her request to management. “I should never have been put in here. I mean, it’s not livable.”

Strawbridge and her three children are the only people living in their building that has ten units. Sewage flows out of the building’s cleanout pipe.

The manager told us off camera that they need the family out of the apartment so that they can fix the building’s plumbing. But they would not move the family to another unit because, as the manager said, they can’t depend on Strawbridge to pay the rent.

Strawbridge says she couldn’t afford to move after spending $4,000 to get into Riverside Oaks. That was for deposits, advance rent, and utility hookups.

Strawbridge was already packing up Thursday morning, expecting to lose her case in court in the afternoon.

Judge Lattier also gave two other tenants at Riverside Oaks 24 hours to move for non-payment of rent.

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