NORTH LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Neighbors in the Jefferson Manor apartments are sounding the alarm after some say they’ve been dealing with mold, water leaks, and broken utilities for months – some, even years.

Darlene Lewis is one tenant facing issues. A resident of 6 months, she says the problems began soon after she first moved in.

“The next day,” Lewis remembered, “I realized we had a problem because the water was leaking.”

Water was coming in from a different unit, soaking through her floors and peeling the vinyl off. She says that water quickly turned into mold, an infestation so bad she says she still has trouble coughing.

After weeks of asking to be moved, management moved her to the unit next door – an apartment also facing a water leak, something Lewis is still trying to get completely fixed. In the meantime, she continues to pay her rent – somewhere around $875 a month.

She’s not alone; a series of other tenants who wished to go unnamed showed us around their apartments, some filled with what appears to be black mold and leaks, others without air conditioning or other utilities.

For John Vernon, the issue is what he’s not seeing in his apartment.

“I’ve been waiting on them for two weeks with no gas,” Vernon explained, an issue he says his entire building is facing.

Vernon is a 15-year resident of the complex and is healing from a recent stroke, a task he says is harder with no way to cook and no hot water.

“They said it was supposed to be on yesterday,” Vernon said Thursday, “but they never got it on.”

Both Vernon and Lewis say managers are slow to fix issues, if they’re fixed at all, and are told the problems are being “worked on”. For Lewis, that’s not good enough.

“You’re telling me, ‘well, we’re going to do what we can do.’ That doesn’t work for me.”

North Little Rock Code Enforcement says they know all about the apartments after a series of complaints and are working with the new management team to solve some of the issues. An officer said the office is in contact with the apartments and continues to receive complaints, issues that are being sorted slowly given the caseload.

An apartment manager on duty declined to comment.