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Action News Jax investigation uncovers lawsuits filed against Jacksonville apartment complex

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Action News Jax has been following tenants' issues at a Jacksonville apartment complex since May.

And our investigation led to a class action lawsuit being filed.

Since the beginning of the year, five lawsuits have been filed against the property management company of Camelot Gardens Apartments.

Action News Jax first told you about the class action lawsuit on Thursday that was filed citing uninhabitable living conditions.

“You expect to pay your rent and have some place that's habitable and a safe place to live,” attorney, Max Story said.

After looking into court documents surrounding the complex, Action News Jax found the other lawsuits.

The city of Jacksonville filed a lawsuit in January for illegal dumping of sewage.

Property manager Mia Manning said they have addressed the issue at the lift station.

“It is fully repaired, we have another company because we had a company that wasn’t properly fixing it,” Manning said.

Then in July, a woman filed a lawsuit claiming her apartment was ransacked by employees and furniture was thrown off the balcony and broken.

The lawsuit states the complex intended to do this to a different tenant, but went to the wrong apartment.

The same month, a mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit after her son was shot and killed in his apartment. She claimed management knew about high crime area and should have provided more protection

“Justice. They need to become better, they need to get cameras and more security,” Angela Tillie said.

Also in July, a tenant filed a lawsuit claiming he is still getting charged for rent although his building was condemned.

“It probably was just a human error on our behalf, but we are not charging them anything,” Manning said.

Manning said they have been pouring millions of dollars into the complex since the company took over about two years ago.

“We’ve had to diligently been repairing the property,” Manning said.

The attorneys behind the recent lawsuit said the tenants deserve a safe place to live.

The manager said she would feel safe to live in the complex.

The manager said they continue to make repairs at the apartments and when the new management took over about two years ago there were more than 5,000 work orders filed.

And she said there are still at least 400 outstanding repairs that need to be done and that safety isn’t a concern.

Manning said if someone has a problem living at the complex, they can break their lease without any fees or penalties.

The company will be working with JSO as security starting Nov. 1.

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