Seven weeks after hundreds of residents of a southeast Denver apartment complex were hastily evacuated from asbestos-contaminated buildings, they still do not have their furniture or belongings.
Many of those residents said they are growing angry that they haven’t been allowed to retrieve belongings and that the apartments’ managers have not come up with a plan to return their property.
“I’m totally left in the blue,” said Sophia Scott, a former resident of the Highline Terrace on Parker apartments, at 1090 S. Parker Road. “I don’t know when I might be able to get my furniture back. Nobody knows anything.”
About 300 Highline Terrace residents were evacuated June 11, after Denver city and Colorado state health officials found asbestos in the building.
Residents had only a few hours – if that – to gather what they could carry and leave their apartments.
Today, Highline Terrace is a ghost town of sorts. A plywood board with the spray-painted words “Do not enter” stands at one of the complex’s entrances. High chain-link fences surround the buildings. Warning signs hang on each building door.
Scott said Highline Terrace’s managers found her an apartment in another complex, but the new apartment has slightly higher rent and less space – most of which is bare anyway.
“My father gave me a couch, and I have a TV,” Scott said. “But I’m surviving day to day off of fast food and other little things.”
Representatives from Omni Apartment Communities, the apartments’ management company, could not be reached for comment Sunday.
In a message posted on the Highline Terrace leasing office’s door, the apartments’ owner, 1090 Parker Road LLC, said: “A plan is being developed for the return of tenants’ belongings. … We do not yet have an estimated time frame for the return of tenants’ belongings.”
Christopher Dann, a spokesman with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said state and Denver officials met with the apartments’ owners Tuesday but that no cleanup plan has been submitted.
“We have been impressing upon the ownership group through their representatives our desire to expedite this situation,” he said. “But we have not had much luck in terms of there being any measurable progress.”
Scott said she left a message for an Omni official but has not heard back. Douglas Reiners, another former Highline Terrace resident, said he also hasn’t had any communication with apartment officials.
“It’s just really frustrating,” Reiners said. “I’m not sure who to talk to.”
Reiners said he has moved into another apartment, which he furnished with items he borrowed from co-workers and family members.
Highline Terrace residents have received refunds of their June rent and their security deposits. Omni also gave the residents $100 Wal-Mart gift cards.
“They were kind of generous in giving us a Wal-Mart gift card,” Reiners said. “But $100 certainly isn’t going to buy back our belongings.”
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
