HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Just imagine stepping out of bed onto a soaked rug surrounded by water… to find out that it came out of a toilet.
“I don’t know if you stepped on that, but it’s like nasty," said tenant Alison Miller.
She said that’s exactly what happened to her and her boyfriend Stephen Parker Friday.
“The toilet, sewage was coming up from the toilet, water, everything, you name it," Parker said.
He said they called the front office at La Montera Apartments in North Harris County for help.
“They got some people over there to clean the water off the hardwood floors and to see if there was a clog in the toilet, which there wasn’t, and come to find out, there were three other apartments that were going through the same issue," Parker said.
The couple said despite their best efforts to make the apartment livable themselves, it "smells like sewer water, the carpets are still really wet, the baseboards are wet, there’s still water seeping out of the walls.”
So, they said they requested to be relocated.
“There was a vacant one next door and they basically told us, ‘No there’s no need’ and all that, ‘We’ll just have someone come out and shampoo the carpets next week," Parker said. "Now we just had to stay where we’re at now."
Both Parker and Miller lost a day of work to deal with the issue. And just days before Christmas, gifts for their kids, who were supposed to come stay with them, were ruined.
“I was going to keep them for about a week until New Year’s, but that’s going to be impossible because I don’t want them breathing in this stuff," Parker said.
As they hope to salvage any bit of the holiday they can, they said the added financial strain doesn’t make it easy
“We’ve already been financially struggling this entire year, so yeah, it’s not good," they said. "Not good at all.”
KHOU 11 has reached out to the apartment complex for comment, but we have yet to hear back.
The couple said they're trying to relocate after the incident. If you would like to donate to help their cause, you can visit their GoFundMe page.