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By Sam Judy | Dallas Weekly Magazine
Dallas housing complexes and apartments are often inaccessible to code compliance officers, allowing residential companies to circumvent responsibilities in maintaining city code. One complex resident’s peaceful enjoyment is actively threatened by poor trash management and illegal towing. Even worse, as Redbird is currently undergoing ‘economic redevelopment,’ some residents allege that mistreatment may be a method of displacement within larger gentrification efforts.
Flordeisha Moore is a resident at Hickory Trace Townhomes in Redbird. After about three years of living at the complex, she began facing issues with bulk trash piling up around the central dumpster just a few steps outside her residence.
For over a year, Moore has been complaining about excessive trash and has alleged retaliation from her complex for doing so. Since her initial complaint, issues have begun to compound.
“I made a request to have the trash removed, and also for something to be done to fix it. There’s several dumpsters in this complex, but for some reason all of the bulk trash goes here,” Moore says. “After I talked to the property manager, my car was illegally towed.”
Moore cites communications with both her residential manager and HighMark, the real estate company that owns Hickory Trace, as examples of either hostility or indifference to issues she’s expressed living at the property.
Bulk trash surrounds the dumpster, usually overflowing directly toward Moore’s garage door. Additionally, the recycling containers lining the outside of one of three walls housing the dumpster have been filled with non-recyclable trash, some of which has been there for more than two years. According to Moore, custodians at the complex have scraped the top of the bins to keep them from overflowing. However, some trash still remains, going as far back as late 2021.
Waste management in charge of hauling garbage has previously told the complex that the trash in the recycling bins must be emptied into the dumpster for collection. Workers handling custodial services at Hickory Trace refused to provide comments.
Following a discussion with her property manager, but prior to the return of her car, Moore states the manager showed up with a camera at her front door, seemingly intending to provoke or antagonize Moore.
“She wanted me to respond so that she could put me out.”
As Redbird has undergone huge changes as a result of development and gentrification in the area, all while slowly pushing out longtime residents, apartment and townhome complexes are becoming a more frequent fixture in the area. With almost twenty complexes holding vacancies in Redbird, with more either at-capacity or in-development, residential neighborhoods are becoming overrun with multi-home properties.
Highmark Residential, the property management company that owns Hickory Trace, is one of the largest in the US with over 300 housing complexes across the nation and over 30 years in the housing business.
Poor management of basic services like waste, coupled with situations like Flordeisha’s, has some residents under the impression that they are being intentionally pushed out.
“Service here has definitely suffered,” a resident who requested to remain anonymous says. “Maintenance requests mostly. And my rent is controlled from living here a few years ago. Sometimes I wonder if that’s [the reason].”
Housing complexes also present a distinct obstacle in maintaining code compliance across residential areas, as the complex itself is typically responsible for upholding regulations without supervision by code enforcement.
While code issues can be reported by residents living within a gated housing complex, many violations potentially go unseen and unreported due to confusion regarding the rules of the complex, the responsibilities of management, and general inaccessibility by city entities.
Retaliation from a property manager or landlord is a similarly complicated issue to address. While you may file a complaint with the Fair Housing Office if you think your rights are being violated, the Department of Housing and Urban Development overall is notoriously difficult to contact about a complaint. Dallas Weekly was unable to get a hold of anyone from the department for this article. Regardless, it’s important to cover your bases legally by keeping physically written correspondence with your property manager/landlord via certified mail.
“People experiencing health or safety issues, they need to request a repair or remedy,” said Farwah Raza, an attorney working with Legal Aid of Northwest Texas. “Everything must be put into writing, so tenants will need to send out a certified letter to the landlord outlining what needs to be done. This is to show that you’ve been contacting them and have given them sufficient time to complete the repairs. As written in the specific code applying to this, you need to make the repair request at the place you pay your rent. There, you’d outline whatever the problem you’re having is.”
While residents citing issues threatening their peaceful enjoyment of their property may face retaliation from residential management, proof of retaliation is more often utilized as evidence showing wrongdoing as a supporting factor in an action or a defense than the primary allegation in a lawsuit.
“Retaliation is not something you can necessarily sue for. It’s more commonly used as a defense, say, in an eviction.” “That way, if you’re sued for a lease violation or unpaid charges – in the case that your landlord hiked up your rent – you can provide the judge a more full perspective of the situation.”
While retaliatory actions have lessened, Hickory Trace’s trash and waste management services have still not disposed of old garbage and continue to pile bulk trash at the dumpster directly outside Flordeisha’s residence.
“Same story, different day,” Moore says. “[I had] Halloween trash, Thanksgiving trash, and Christmas trash for another year.”
With a combination of low accessibility of 311 services and tenant law that has been long established with no updates despite new factors arising in various contexts, gated complexes effectively privatize their physical spaces. As porters and office associates employed by apartment and housing complexes handle facilities such as trash, maintenance, and parking, this further isolates tenants from protections and services they could potentially attain in the public sphere.
Development in Redbird continues. Ambitious projects, like the new Red Bird Mall undertaken by local real estate mogul Peter Brodsky, exist primarily by design to draw middle-class residents to the neighborhood. And while residential complexes continue to sprout up to accommodate a newer, more privileged community in the area, this slice of Southern Dallas is undergoing a transformation that leaves less affluent residents at the behest of private entities.
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