“Seeking advice on how to deal with a difficult resident situation in my apartment complex.”

“Dear PoPville,

Seeking advice on how to deal with a difficult resident situation in my apartment complex. There is a resident in this complex that is experiencing a severe mental health crisis and it is seriously impacting other residents’ ability to live safely in our own apartments.

First, I do want to say that I am incredibly sympathetic to this resident’s current situation. I don’t want them to end up experiencing homelessness, and I don’t want to escalate this to the police if I can help it. From what I have gathered from dealing with management for months, they are not in a city program and their family is unwilling to help, so I am at a loss as to what our options are. Management’s only option at this time is a suggestion to move.

This resident has been throwing his own feces and bottles of urine, along with other items of trash and his own clothing, out of his window for several months. The trash accumulates on a retaining wall outside of the windows of several apartments, preventing us from opening our windows. This has also exacerbated pests. The severity of the situation has ebbed and flowed, and multiple residents have reported this to our property management. I believe management when they say they are doing everything they legally can in this situation, but it has become unbearable. Although they suspect that they know who the resident is, they cannot move forward with this particular issue without an eyewitness account of them physically throwing items out of the window.

Although I cannot say with 100% certainty that this is the same resident, there have been other accounts of someone with a similar description publicly urinating in the courtyard, following other residents, and exposing themself in common areas. I have interacted with this resident multiple times, and they have been completely out of it, often standing for hours at a time in the same place in common areas.

The Office of the Tenant Advocate has been absolutely no help, so any advice you can give would be much appreciated! I want to be as sensitive and respectful as possible, but based on personal interactions with this suspected resident and the increase in this behavior, I am worried that this could culminate in a very unsafe situation for other residents and/or the resident themself.”