LAKE MARY, Fla. – Months after Seminole County identified structural problems at Pebble Creek Apartments in Lake Mary, some tenants still living in affected units say they’re now being given just seven days to move out - and are being forced to make a choice they say puts their safety at risk.
David Subramanian and Haley Burns showed News 6 a notice they say was taped to their door on June 16.
The notice states management had been informed by Seminole County Code Enforcement that their unit is “no longer fit for habitation.” It terminates their lease immediately and gives them seven days to vacate.
“No email, no phone call, no text message,” David Subramanian said. “We come and there’s just a piece of paper slapped on with duct tape saying that you have to get out in seven days.”
The couple says they always planned to move out, but wanted to wait until repairs were made to stairways Seminole County had already deemed unsafe.
Subramanian says moving furniture down those stairs now creates a dilemma.
“We’re kind of packing up and hope that maybe we can take some of the smaller stuff and maybe leave the couches and bigger items,” he said.
“They are pretty much telling either I need to forfeit my stuff or put my family at risk.”
He says he and his wife have stumbled on the stairs before and worries about carrying heavy furniture down them.
“I can’t even hire a moving company because technically they can’t come up the stairs,” he said.
The couple invited News 6 inside as they packed boxes and prepared for an uncertain move.
Subramanian says management had repeatedly promised residents the stairways would soon be shored up.
News 6 also spoke with another tenant who received the same seven-day notice. She said the complex moved her into a temporary unit after the initial evacuation but told her not to move her belongings out of her original apartment.
Now, she says, she has less than a week to remove those belongings from the same unit.
“It’s been awful, a horrible experience,” Subramanian said. “There’s been many nights that I haven’t been able to sleep because of all this stuff.”
Earlier this year, Seminole County identified structural problems affecting dozens of units, including rusting staircases.
News 6 reached out to Seminole County and Pebble Creek management asking whether there has been a new determination regarding the affected units, why some residents are now receiving seven-day notices and what assistance is being offered to tenants being forced to leave.
As of publication, neither had responded.