SAN MARCOS, Texas — Tenants at a San Marcos apartment complex say they're living in unsafe conditions, and management isn't doing much to help.
At first glance, Kimberlyn Abbott says nothing seems off about her apartment at the Grove at San Marcos. But when you take a closer look, that's where concerns start to grow.
“Oh, yeah. Not cleaned,” Abbott said, as she inspected a mold-covered vent she unscrewed from the ceiling of her roommate’s bathroom.
Abbott says that she and her roommate, Callie Wahrmund, only moved into The Grove a month ago. She says they were denied a tour of their unit before signing a lease, but says management promised that the apartment would look like what was advertised online.
“My roommate moved in on Aug. 5; we had met the apartment manager and told her we wanted a walk-through immediately,” Abbott said.
She says the state of the entryway was just a preview of what waited inside.
“The walls of the exterior and the door are covered in mold,” Abbott explained. “When we walked into the apartment, the first thing we noticed was a chunk of our floor missing.”
The place was dirty, the sink was leaking and the dishwasher was broken. However, Abbott says the most alarming part was the evident mold.
“It concerns me because that's what we're breathing in everyday, especially because its in multiple of our air vents that's just circulating through our house,” Wahrmund said.
Abbott says the apartment, owned by the Scion Group, isn't the first one she's had problems with.
In 2022, when she was a sophomore in college, Abbott moved into a Scion Group-owned apartment called Copper Beech.
“Animal feces in the carpet just smeared everywhere. Dirt. We had mold growing in various places, broken windows,” Abbott said of the Copper Beech.
She says they've put in multiple work orders to get things fixed at the Grove.
We reached out to the Scion Group and a spokesperson told us in a statement that they were notified about the mold and other requests, and said they have addressed all of them, and treated the areas.
“They fixed a few but not to the extent that they should,” Abbott said.
Abbott says Scion-owned apartments are cheaper than other options in the surrounding area, and that as a recent college graduate, she can’t afford to just leave.
“Unless you're going out to Kyle or Buda where it's a more established area, not as many students, then you'll get better housing. But in San Marcos, the housing problem is just very bad,” Abbott explained.
Scion said they did offer a couple options: Either terminate the lease for partial payment and find a sub-letter, or transfer to a different apartment.
The tenants declined both options.
“To me, it's crazy given the fact that they haven't even fixed the problems, especially the mold problems, and they're okay moving someone else in here,” Wahrmund said.
Abbott says they feel taken advantage of as younger, more inexperienced people and hopes for a change and better conditions.
“Scion needs to make a change and start taking the health and safety of tenants seriously," Abbott said. "It could cause really big stress and financial burdens and health concerns on their tenants so they need to take it seriously so that we can prevent this from future residents."