Family dealing with black mold calls In Your Corner team

ELK CITY, Okla. (KFOR) — An Elk City family who has asthma is now having to deal with black mold in their apartment from a water leak, and they say maintenance at the apartment complex has done little to nothing to help.

They say they have been dealing with water issues over the past few years, but this has been the worst.

But, what the family adds to the whole situation, makes it even worse; a maintenance worker at the apartment complex was fired for going out of his way to try and help.

Their pipes had burst in early January, leaving their apartment in about two inches of water.

Kaleb Lovelace is worried for the ones he loves and says repairs to his apartment aren't being made fast enough.

"Both my daughters, wife, and mother-in-law are there," Kaleb Lovelace, tenant at Park Place Apartments said. "They're asthmatic and mold, black mold can cling into you really easy and start growing on the inside of the human being's body, and it can inevitably kill you. So, I'm constantly worried about that."

A maintenance worker was sent to check the damage after the pipe inside their apartment had burst.

"They had about an inch of standing water throughout their whole unit," said Michael Berry, former maintenance worker at Park Place Apartments.

After seeing that, Berry told management that more needed to be done to fix the problem, but says he was met with backlash.

"I went to go tell her about it and she wasn't concerned with those," Berry said. "So, I went higher up and told the higher manager. Well, during the time I was doing the repairs, she told me after I was done to come in the office. She asked me why I proceeded to call the higher-ups, and I told her and she proceeded to tell me that I was fired for my attitude."

Weeks went by and there was still no fix. So, Lovelace called News 4.

When he told management that News 4 was coming on Monday, he said workers then came by.

"They immediately had maintenance come out and put a coat of Kilz on it real quick, hoping it would do it, but everyone knows Kilz alone doesn't kill mold," said Lovelace.

When News 4 stopped by the office on Monday, no one was there, so we called the number that was listed on the door.

"That would honestly be something that the regional manager would have to answer," said the property manager over the phone.

For two days, News 4 kept trying to get answers.

"So, my regional manager actually passed it along to corporate," the property manager said after calling again on Wednesday. "That is kind of just up to them now on what is going to happen on them calling you. We are not allowed to comment on anything here."

On Wednesday, they sent us pictures showing repairs had been made and signed documents to prove it.

However, they did not answer our questions about why it took so long, or about Berry's termination.

"How could I be wrongfully terminated for trying to do what my job was and do right by my tenants," Berry asked.

"We're hoping this will maybe wake them up, make them think, okay, we do have tenants," Lovelace said. "We do have to think about these families, not just ourselves in our pockets."

With their water problem solved at least for now, the Lovelace family wanted to thank News 4 and the In Your Corner team for helping.