MILWAUKEE — Water dripping from the ceiling, doorways, and light fixtures, and puddles forming in the hallway. That's what one Berrada Properties tenant has been dealing with for the last five days.
After receiving no call back from Berrada or the City of Milwaukee, the tenant called TMJ4's Jenna Rae.
"If you would notice, it's like walking in a swamp. It's dripping over the doorways, you can see the buckets," Mr. Smith said.
Smith's been living at a Berrada Property on Appleton Avenue for nearly a decade. Berrada bought the property in May 2023.
Since Saturday, water has been pooling on the floor, seeping out of the ceiling, and dripping down the walls. Smith's floors are now lined with buckets.
Water is even coming out of the light fixtures which forced Smith to turn off some of his electricity at the risk of fire.
"It just got worse and worse and worse. I called Berrada's people five times, I left three voicemail messages, I emailed them once. Here it is Wednesday, the fifth day consecutively. You guys are here, they're not here," Smith explained.
On Monday, Smith said he called Community Advocates who told him to go to the Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS).
Tuesday, Smith went to DNS.
"They said it's not an emergency. I showed them the video. Everybody looked at it and was like 'Woah, I have no words for this. This is terrible,'" Smith explained.
Smith said DNS told him it would take four weeks or more for an inspector to come out.
So, we went with Smith back to DNS on Wednesday.
Within 15 minutes of us being there, we were headed back to Smith's apartment to meet a city inspector.
"You wouldn't want to live like this at all. Who would? This is ugh. This is, I don't know, I'm at a loss for words, and that's rare for me," Smith said.
When we got back to Smith's apartment Wednesday afternoon, Berrada employees were there. They said they were fixing a leak in an apartment above Smith.
We tried calling Berrada Properties several times Wednesday.
By Wednesday afternoon, Berrada's maintenance folks said the leak was under control and another crew was coming to rip up the carpet and drywall inside Smith's unit.
After this story aired, a spokesperson from Berrada Properties sent us the following statement:
“Berrada Properties values providing safe homes for our tenants. It benefits no property owner to have an intrusion of water into their building. We did receive the complaint and made efforts to remedy the situation on Monday. However, we were unable to gain entry into the effected unit and were unsuccessful in contacting the tenant. We have spoken with Mr. Smith and will take the necessary measures to resolve this problem and restore his unit to a habitable condition.”
Mr. Smith said no one from Berrada tried contacting him on Monday. Milwaukee City Code states that except for an emergency, the landlord may enter only after a 12-hour advance notice unless you allow entry on shorter notice.
We will continue following up on this.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.
