Renters fight landlord over flooded house – Shelby Star

It's Monday morning and Lisa Horstman sloshes across the floor in her rain boots and retrieves a cardboard box from a shelf.

The scent of lavender and spearmint mingles with dirty water, and Horstman points out clumps of what appears to be mold floating on the surface of the vinyl flooring in the room where she stores her products.

Horstman and her daughter, Emily Horstman, are packing up and preparing to move out of their Grover home, but its not by choice.

The two women moved from Virginia after Lisa Horstman fled an abusive relationship and after a brief stint in Kings Mountain, found the rental home in a quiet neighborhood on Brookwood Drive and moved in around Christmas of 2021.

The Horstmans said they pay rent of $1,450 a month for the three-bedroom, 2,000-square-foot house.

We couldn't find anything cheaper, Lisa Horstman said.

In addition to being a living space, she runs her business, The Wild Bee, out of her home making and selling handcrafted skin care products.

Everything seemed perfect until January when deluge of rain fell and the house flooded for the first time.

It comes pouring in from the backyard and through the foundation, she said.

The patio alongside the house was filled up and overflowing, and the women attempted to drain it with a Shop-Vac, filling it up and emptying it out over and over during a 12-hour period. Lisa Horstman said she swept water away from the sidewalk leading to the patio each hour to no avail.

In an attempt to alleviate the problem, she said she put caulking along the edge of the patio, bought and installed drain pipes to direct water away from the house and had Emily's boyfriend help shore up the foundation with dirt, but nothing has kept the water out.

Horstman said the rental company, Hudson Homes, which is based in Texas but has properties all over the Carolinas and beyond, had refused to fix the problem and instead replaced the floors three times.

She said at first, they didn't return her calls about the standing water in half of her house, but after repeated phone calls, a contractor was sent out and he gave an estimate for what it would cost the fix the outside so the water wouldnt keep coming in. She said he was instructed to do nothing more than replace the vinyl floors.

So they replaced that and put fans up to let it dry out, Horstman said. They took the floor up and put fans in for three weeks.

After three weeks of living with exposed plywood floors, she said they put in new flooring.

Horstman points to a pile of soggy vinyl materials in a heap in the backyard.

This is from the last flood. They just left it in the yard, she said.

Then, in April it rained again and once again, the house flooded.

Horstman said a contractor came out, tore out the floors, put in new ones and nailed back damp, moldy baseboards.

Last week, just hours after the new floors were installed, mother and daughter were sitting on the couch that night and watched in despair as fresh water began pooling across the living room floor.

Lisa Horstman said she was in tears as she watched the house flood for the third time since January.

At 10:30 p.m. the water was coming back, and the floor was not even dry, she said. This time when it flooded, I called them right away at 10:30 and said the water is coming in. I need help here, this is an emergency. This room is in three inches of water. I've been in muck boots trying to get everything out of the water.

She said the contractor told the women the company won't approve to get the issue resolved.

Now, they're faced with damaged furniture and the pressure of finding a new place to live.

We're moving, Horstman said. We have to. It smells weird. There is mold. After that second flooding, I pulled the baseboards back. The water seeped on the sidewalk into the foundations and into the walls of the house and through the door. I pulled that back, and there's mold growing on the wood trim.

She said she has Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy, and the issues with the house have exacerbated the condition. She said she and her daughter have experienced sore throats and congestion after spending time in the house.

Horstman said she was told by neighbors that this isnt the first time people have moved out of the house because of flooding. She said one neighbor would warn prospective renters to stay away.

"That house floods," she would tell them. But she missed the Horstmans.

Now, as they scramble for last-minute housing, Lisa Horstman is in the process of having the house inspected and wants it deemed unfit for habitation. She has completed paperwork with the county zoning office and filled out a petition which was signed by several neighbors. She said a Cleveland County Code Enforcement Officer came out Wednesday morning to conduct an inspection.

After the house flooded the last time and she said she couldnt get the company to return her phone calls, Horstman withheld rent.

She said three days after it was due, she received an eviction notice.

I called and called and said Im not paying rent because of the issues, and they never called me back, she said.

Frightened by the prospect of eviction, she said she paid.

This time, she said she said she plans to file a claim in small claims court for all the damaged furniture and potentially seek a rent abatement.

In the meantime, shes turned off the heat and is planning to seal off half the house to keep the mold from growing any faster.

Horstman said Tuesday that the contractor who came out to fix the floors said he wasnt told there was standing water in the house.

He said he has been here before. The mold was growing up the walls to the top. They cleaned it all up and replaced the floors. The furniture was all in the house, covered in mold. This was a few years ago, she said.

Tuesday morning The Star called Hudson Homes Customer Care number and left a message, the same number Lisa Horstman has been calling to make complaints. Tuesday afternoon a woman from the company returned the call.

She said a general contractor was out at the home and was pulling up flooring, letting it dry and installing new floors. She said he was also working on putting in a drain in the backyard to keep the water out of the house and the issue would be resolved by the weekend.

"In addition to resolving these issues, the tenant will receive a credit," the woman said.

Horstman confirmed that Tuesday afternoon she received notification that the company would be giving her a $1,200 credit.

The spokesperson from Hudson said "the issue" in January was fixed, and they thought it had been resolved. When asked if that issue was the flooding, she confirmed it was. She said the home was flagged again in April for the same problem but it took some time to resolve again because they had to go through a bid process.

"We do apologize for that," she said. "We thought the issues had been resolved in January."

She said the best way a tenant can resolve an issue is to communicate it to the company so it can be escalated.

When asked how long the company has owned the home and if prior tenants had also faced flooding issues, the woman said she didn't have the full property history available.

When it comes to tenant rights, many renters don't realize their options regarding a landlord who won't make repairs.

Legal Aid North of Carolina offers multiple resources for renters, including how to file a claim insmall claims court, guides for eviction appeals and free tenants rights clinics which teaches renters what to do if their landlord wont make repairs and offers the assistance of an attorney who can answer general questions.

In a YouTube video, Legal Aid explains tenant rights and outlines what to do when a landlord wont make repairs.

The video goes over North Carolina statutes and reminds renters that a tenant cannot refuse to pay rent if a landlord does not make repairs, and a landlord cannot refuse to make repairs if a tenant fails to pay rent.

Some of the tips from Legal Aid include:

For more information and resources on the rights and responsibilities of both landlords and tenants, visit Legal Aid of North Carolina.

Rebecca Sitzes can be reached at rsitzes@gannett.com.

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Renters fight landlord over flooded house - Shelby Star