LAKE JACKSON, Texas — Tenants at Edgewater Apartments are outraged after the city informed them that their water could soon be shut off and their wastewater service disconnected because their landlord owes nearly $80,000 in unpaid utility bills.
Residents said they pay their utilities with the rent so they had no idea what was going on until the city sent a letter to them earlier this week saying the water could be shut off as soon as Jan. 2, unless the outstanding bill was paid in full.
On Monday, the city also put up a sign outside the complex about the issue.
This alarmed tenants like Celeste Slater.
"It makes me mad; it makes me so frustrated because I trusted them," she said.
According to the Lake Jackson City Manager Modesto Mundo, the city filed a lien against the apartment complex back in August after he said the property owners refused to pay for the water, sewer and garbage services dating back more than a year.
The total amount currently owed is $77,302.02
In addition, he said every month the utility bill comes out to about $15,000 for every month they don’t pay.
"We've been trying to work with the property owners since September of 2023 when they started to fall behind on their payments and in April of 2024, we negotiated an agreement for them to repay their balance, but they've been remiss,” said Mundo.
Mundo said after several more failed attempts, including a promise from one of the property owners to pay last week, they were forced to take drastic action and alert residents that if payment wasn't made in full the complex's water would be shut off.
"We decided we needed to inform the residents and give them time to make changes in their living conditions,” said Mundo.
Resident Narissa Tagg, who lived at the complex for over two years, said she’s glad tenants are now in the loop but also feels tenants could be punished for their landlord's bad behavior.
"We pay our rent on time y'all want your money if we're a few days late, why are you not paying the city?" said Tagg. “It's not fair to keep residents in a limbo situation.”
She went on to say she was worried about the other residents.
“There's a lot of families that live here with new babies, older people that live here and for them to have to uproot everything because of this happening," Tagg said.
KHOU 11 News also learned one of the three property owners told several tenants in person they would settle the bill and keep the water on.
"He kept promising us yesterday that he's a problem solver, but he could not give us the exact answer we were looking for,” said Slater.
Meanwhile, tenants like Joe Kelpen said they wondered where the money they'd paid all this time was going.
"It feels like we've been betrayed because you know we struggle to pay our rent and that's $50 to $70 bucks a month that we add to our rent every month," he said.
KHOU 11 News reached out to the property owner but has not heard back.