HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Aquoya Todd said she's been living a nightmare.
“One night, I fell asleep, and I woke up; the reason I woke up was because I could smell poop getting closer to my nose. So, I get up and there's water flooding the apartment," she said.
Mud-colored water had bubbled up from the toilet and tub, flooding the Tampa apartment she shares with her three young children. And it didn't just happen once. It happened five times in 2022.
Because it's happened so many times, Todd’s 5-year-old twins and daughter Taylor know the drill.
As the filth flows out of the bathroom and into their living room, their mother shouts the orders: "Y’all, it’s flooded, hurry up, pick up everything off the floor. We got to pick it up. We got to go now.”
The most recent flood occurred three weeks before Christmas leaving the single, working mom with no safe space on the floor to put a tree or gifts.
“It’s just been stressful, you know, a lot of suffering mentally and physically," Todd said.
Maintenance staff would clean up the mess but never replaced the repeatedly soaked carpet. And because the sewage came without warning and the carpet was contaminated, the family has most of their belongings stacked in plastic bins. Todd says she doesn’t keep anything in the carpeted bedroom and closets.
ABC Action News checked code enforcement records and found Todd reported every incident and each time, an investigator ordered the landlord to fix the plumbing. Records reflect repairs were made after every incident. But they didn't last.
ABC Action News asked county officials why more hasn't been done to force the landlord to permanently fix the plumbing and the large leaky hole above the bathtub. Code Enforcement Chief Jon-Paul Lavandeira admitted this is one of the more disturbing cases he’s worked on.
“What we are called to do in the code is compliance and that means fixing the issue," he said. And Every time they inspected maintenance, people fixed it.
But after ABC Action News started investigating and making calls about Todd's situation, Hillsborough County Code Enforcement Board held a hearing about the violations found in Todd's apartment.
Board members listened as a code investigator and Todd testified about the troubled history at Laurel Chase Apartments. Minutes later, members voted unanimously to crack down on property management, giving Laurel Chase five days to make permanent repairs and replace the carpet. If the work weren't completed in that time frame, they would face a $ 1,000-a-day fine.
After the hearing, ABC Action News contacted the property manager. She would not comment other than to say the work would get done. And it did, just days before Christmas.
Todd says it is the first time anyone has offered to provide her family relief from the conditions they’ve spent living in for the last year.
“That is what I’m most thankful for," she said. "That they will face some type of consequences...”
The county also issued a "remain in compliance order," meaning that if the violations are repeated, the daily fines will automatically kick in.
