Texas storm recovery for renters like this Dallas man is hard-fought - The Dallas Morning News

Tom Strzyz sulked in the muggy air outside his mucky apartment.

The epic snowstorm, failed electricity and busted pipes have sent his spirits south. Almost four weeks since the Texas arctic blast began on Valentine’s Day, his apartment is still a mess, especially the bathroom where a wall turned to sponge from a water leak and exposed the timber.

The electric motor on his scooter shorted from the flooding in his apartment. His laptop sat ruined in a stained red case.

“Our biggest problem is not getting things fixed,” Strzyz said.

The Serenity Prayer in the kitchen urged him to accept the things he could not change, to have the courage to change the things he could.

Strzyz is the 50-year-old disabled son of a Chicago landlord with 12 apartments. He knows something about tenants’ rights and landlords’ responsibilities.

He sat this week in a battered wheelchair, wearing shorts and a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, outside his apartment near shrubbery bearing dead leaves the color of amber. The outdoor air smelled fresher there than the moldy odors, mixed with disinfectant, inside his cramped home at the sprawling complex with a dreamy name — Wildflower.

Tom Strzyz's bathroom has not been fully functional since pipes burst during the winter storm that hit Texas in mid-February. Strzyz along with several residents, lost power and had to fetch water from the complex's swimming pool. Hot water only began to flow this week in spurts at the Wildflower Apts complex in Dallas on Thursday, March 11, 2021. (Lola Gomez)

At the Wildflower, property managers didn’t return reporters’ phone calls to answer questions about what could be done for Strzyz and other tenants still suffering from the effects of the winter storms and its extended electrical outages. Nor did SMI Realty Management, the Houston firm listed for the apartment complex in Dallas County property records.

With 924 apartments, according to property records, Wildflower’s population, tucked in the Vickery Meadow neighborhood, is the size of a small Texas town.

Damage costs from the epic storm that sent power outages across most of Texas are expected to exceed the $19 billion mark of Hurricane Harvey, according to the Insurance Council of Texas. Long after most of the state has recovered, the problems here continue. And the year-old coronavirus pandemic complicates everything.

But at what point is it reasonable to expect repairs? Strzyz’s experience reveals how hard recovery can be for some renters. And it sheds light on the way Dallas’ infrastructure and regulations can fail residents in the same way they did when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans.

“You can’t say it’s over,” said Martha Stowe, a social worker who is the executive director of the Vickery Meadow Youth Development Foundation. “For these folks, it is still very much with them.”

The carpet in Tom Strzyz's room was removed after his apartment was flooded by a broken pipe during the winter storm that hit Texas in mid-February. Strzyz along with several residents, lost power and had to fetch water from the swimming pool. Hot water only returned this week in spurts at the Wildflower Apts complex in Dallas on Thursday, March 11, 2021. (Lola Gomez)

Code violations

The city of Dallas says no apartments have received a code violation since the storm.

City spokeswoman Roxana Rubio said in an email, “given the circumstances, Code did not use citation to any properties that were giving their best efforts to make speedy repairs or offer appropriate assistance (when available) to their residents.”

Repair times took longer due to the lack of available resources, the widespread damage and a bottlenecked supply-chain, she added.

Prior to the storm, Wildflower received a warning in 2021 for failure to properly maintain the plumbing systems. That violation bundled about a dozen complaints.

In the weeks after the storm, there have been days when there is hot water, but also days when it is suddenly off. Thursday and Friday, Strzyz and his immediate neighbors had both hot and cold water. But further away from his building, others did not, he said. A trailer with outdoor showers still stood in the corner of a Wildflower parking lot.

During the worst of the freeze, burst pipes meant that water was coming down a shared breezeway “like a faucet,” Strzyz said. Temperatures were so frigid the parking lot looked “like a skating rink.”

His apartment flooded. It took management 17 hours to turn the water off, he said. He struggled to stay warm. Strzyz, a diabetic, worried about keeping his insulin and other medications at correct temperatures.

Finally, after a week, the bedroom was stripped of its soggy carpet. He said it was “like a swimming pool.” A big Persian rug, a gift from a sister, was ruined, too. The dampness and odors made breathing difficult, he said. He called management often for help.

“What is an emergency, if not this?” he asked, through his purple mask.

Tom Strzyz uses a ramp that he paid for at the Wildflower Apartments in Dallas on Thursday, March 11, 2021. After the winter storm hit Texas mid-February, Strzyz along with several residents, lost power, fetched water from the swimming pool and hot water only began to flow this week, but not always. (Lola Gomez)

The Dallas property code says that the landlord must maintain heating facilities that are capable of keeping room temperature at least 15 degrees warmer than the outside but in no event lower than 68 degrees Fahrenheit in each habitable room.

And, emphasized Sandy Rollins, the executive director of the Texas Tenants’ Union, “retaliation is illegal.” Rollins cites the state property code, which, among many issues, prohibits retaliation against a tenant for claiming a building or housing code violation or utility problem.

Pulling together

At the Wildflower, water in apartments was off for roughly two weeks and residents took turns helping each other with buckets filled from a faucet, or the swimming pools. Buckets of water were needed to flush the toilets and wash dishes.

A Wildflower management email from March 4 instructs residents on how to “force flush” a toilet. “Use a large bucket of water, open the toilet seat and QUICKLY pour the entire bucket into the TOILET BOWL. Gravity will do the rest.”

Cold showers could be taken in one vacant apartment in each of the three large sections, known as phases at Wildflower. The shower would be cleaned between each use by management, the email read.

Strzyz’s neighbor Julia Rocha helped carry some of the buckets for him. She knew the importance of neighbors pulling together in times of need. During the pandemic, she lost her job at a glitzy restaurant at NorthPark mall when business shriveled. She was particularly grateful when a nonprofit, the Harvest Project Food Rescue, showed up with more water, too.

“We were living like that!” said Rocha, through her mask, as she shook her head in disbelief over what she and her neighbor had been through.

Wildflower Apts complex enabled a couple of portable showers to be used by residents in Dallas on Thursday, March 11, 2021, after many were left without electricity, water after the winter storm hit Texas in mid-February.(Lola Gomez)

Strzyz said he was grateful for good neighbors.

His wife passed away from a sudden illness a few years ago. The former truck mechanic had a stroke in 2017 and was in a coma for 30 days. Even today, he speaks with a slight slur. The stroke left him dependent on his wheelchair and electric scooter to get around because he can’t walk.

Wildflower lies in the middle of the Vickery Meadow neighborhood in northeast Dallas. Wildflower is so expansive, residents can have one of three street addresses.

The neighborhood is a labyrinth of apartment complexes, where many refugees and immigrants have settled because of cheap rents. Restaurants and grocery stores tout their goods to Ethiopians, Burmese and Mexicans. More than two dozen languages are spoken in the schools.

Strzyz’s rent at Wildflower for a one-bedroom apartment varies from $750 to $850, depending on utility use.

“With all the money they get in here, they should take care of everyone,” he said.

At the end of the week, Strzyz filled out forms for disaster assistance for renters from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He said he hopes he qualifies for assistance to replace his furniture and other damaged belongings.

“I am going to get through this one way or another,” he said.

Weather

‘This is America’: Some Dallas residents depend on fire hydrants, donations for water to flush toilets, drink

Yesenia Flores and her 9-year-old son filled metal pots and plastic pails with chilly water from a silver-and-blue fire hydrant. Last week’s winter storm left them without water after pipes burst in their Vickery Meadow apartment building in northeast Dallas. Electricity and water are flowing now for most Texans but many, like Flores, still struggle for basic needs. Water scarcity has come to this. Three hours in line for a few pots of water from a fire hydrant to flush toilets and wash dishes.

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