TULSA, Okla. — The City of Stillwater will sue Vesta Realty.
The decision was unanimous, passed by a visibly appalled mayor and team of city council members.
Vesta Realty is the property management company that runs Remington Ranch apartments, where hundreds of residents have been living without hot water since at least November.
WATCH: Hundreds without hot water, Stillwater takes Vesta to court:
“These folks deserve homes to live in. Please, make it happen,” said Mayor Will Joyce to Vesta representatives during a February meeting.
“I had to carry buckets of water to the bathtub nine times or more,” said Joyce Fox, a caretaker of one of the residents, who spoke at the meeting.
“I don’t feel the sincerity or the sympathy—unless they [Vesta] want to take a bath in that water every day,” said Desiree Pierce, another resident who spoke at the meeting.
Joyce said Vesta is also $200,000 behind in utility bills to the city.
“We are as frustrated by this situation as the city is,” said Page Walters, attorney for Vesta.
“I find that hard to believe,” replied Joyce.
“Well, then we are a close second,” said Walters.
Beth Ann Childs, an attorney who represents multiple municipalities, including Stillwater, says it is unique for a city to get involved in housing issues.
“Typically, municipal functions are going to be streets, water, stormwater, police, fire, those types of things,” said Childs.
She says the college town has a robust public nuisance abatement policy, and this is a big problem.
“I think what this does is convey the seriousness of the situation to Vesta,” she said.
Vesta owns multiple apartment complexes across the state, including several in the Tulsa metro area.
2 News first started covering problems with Vesta Realty in January, when we heard from multiple tenants that their trash wasn’t being picked up, despite residents being responsible for the trash bill themselves. We also learned that Vesta’s owner, Marc Kulick, was behind on millions of dollars in loans.
Since 2 News began its coverage, countless tenants, frustrated contractors, and angry current and former employees have come forward.
Amber Jenkins lives at the Villas of Midtown. She pays $1050 per month, but says hot water takes compromise.
“It’s either do a load of laundry, do a load of dishes, or take a shower,” she said.
Amber showed us how she has to use a hangar to open the dryer, because she says they never gave her a handle.
She says the gym, one of the amenities, is closed.
She says she pays $17 a month to Vesta for pest control, but has never received any services.
“I killed at least a hundred roaches the first night I was here,” she said.
She said the outside and stairwell lighting is broken.
“There were two people sleeping underneath there trying to sell people stuff as they walked by,” she said.
Most recently, she said the mail stopped being delivered.
“The [mail] room is such a mess, he can’t deliver the mail, and we have to go to the substation,” she said.
Like Amber, many tenants who emailed 2 News simply want basic housing they pay for, and do not know where to turn to get it.
We reached out to Vesta, citing each concern listed in the Stillwater meeting and by Amber. We reached out directly to Kulick, but were told to contact the Chief Operating Officer, Benjamin Didier.
In an email, Didier wrote:
"We recognize these issues are disruptive for residents, and we take resident health, safety, and essential services seriously.
Our teams and qualified vendors are actively addressing maintenance and service items through established operational processes. We address resident concerns directly with residents and provide updates through normal property communication channels."
Stillwater’s attorney advised any tenants struggling to get help to reach out to Legal Aid.
We reached out to the City of Tulsa to see if they had a stance on the mounting issues with Vesta.
In an email, spokesperson Carson Colvin advised any frustrated tenants to call 311 if they feel they are not getting action by the property manager or owner.
“This ensures that the City is made aware of these issues and can work with the property to bring it into compliance. It also creates a clear path to enforcement if those issues are not corrected,” said Colvin.
“To prevent property maintenance issues from getting out of hand like we had at the former Vista Shadow Mountain Apartment complex, the City created the Multi-Family Inspections group that proactively inspects multifamily properties across the city to prevent them from reaching a state of disrepair. Thankfully, we haven’t come across a complex like Vista since we’ve started those inspections, but we do frequently come across property maintenance issues that we ask to be addressed.”
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