The vibrant, well-maintained entrance signs shrouded by neatly trimmed bushes at the front of Lakeview Apartment Homes in Stone Mountain mask the rundown conditions of buildings inside the 22-acre complex.
Putrid smelling trash sometimes sits stagnant in bins for days in common areas outside people’s apartments. Vinyl siding was seen collapsing on at least one building on Friday. Some residents complained to Capital B Atlanta about rampant crime and maintenance issues, such as broken sinks and light fixtures that go unaddressed.
It’s been less than four months since Rahmya Mosley and her boyfriend moved into their one-bedroom rental unit at Lakeview. They’re already exploring ways to break their lease.
“I’m not staying here,” Mosley told Capital B Atlanta. “I feel like this is literally a loss of money.”
Mosley, 22, who works as a nursing home receptionist, was one of several Lakeview tenants who complained last week about management’s lack of repairs for the dilapidated complex, billing them hundreds of dollars or more every month for unwarranted fees followed by threats of eviction.
These are accusations that Lakeview denies, but these tactics appear to be commonplace in metro Atlanta.
Earlier this year, Princeton University’s Eviction Lab nonprofit identified Lakeview Apartments as the #2 eviction hotspot in metro Atlanta, which led the nation in evictions last year. The 407 dispossession cases filed in 2025 by Lakeview’s parent company, SMP Lakeview SPE and the Bethesda, Maryland-based Acento Real Estate Partners, came second to only the Hunter Ridge Mobile Home Park near Jonesboro in unincorporated Clayton County.
The assistant community manager for Lakeview, who identified himself as Derick, told Capital B Atlanta on Friday that the company doesn’t evict people without just cause.
He said rent is typically due on the first of the month and tenants typically get until at least the 15th of the month to pay their rent and fees before an eviction is filed at the tenant’s expense.
“I don’t put people out that pay rent. I don’t put people out who are not problems,” Derick said. “We put people out who don’t take care of their financial obligations.”
Derick also suggested tenant complaints about fees are exaggerated and concerns about undue fees can be resolved with management.
“Anyone that says they’re being charged a fee that’s not in their lease, let’s come to the office and discuss it,” he said.
He also acknowledged the higher rate of evictions at Lakeview and said financial problems that began during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic may have played a factor in why the company filed so many evictions last year.
He suggested folks concerned about the high rate of evictions at Lakeview can help by helping some of their current and former tenants secure employment.
“I have plenty of folks who wouldn’t mind taking some help … with maybe helping them find a job,” he said.
Peter Hepburn, Eviction Lab research collaborator and an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University, said there’s no reliable data yet on the role junk fees play in evictions, but the ease and speed of eviction filings in Georgia is one of the reasons metro Atlanta remains the eviction capital of America.
Roughly 50% of all renters in metro Atlanta are Black, according to Eviction Lab, but about 70% of eviction cases are against Black renters.
“Anecdotally, we hear about them all the time,” Hepburn said of junk fee-related evictions. “When an eviction case gets filed in Atlanta, they’re not six months behind. They’re one month behind. Landlords aren’t letting this slide.”
“There are laws and regulations that make the eviction process particularly fast and particularly cheap here in Georgia,” added Eviction Lab spokesperson Juan Pablo Garnham. “Filing an eviction, depending on what county you’re in, is between $55 and $80. The national average is $110.”
Mosley said she’s paid her $1,149 rent on time each month, but estimates she’s been billed $400 in bogus fees that she refuses to pay.
She said some of those fees are for unprovided services like trash collection and pest control. Others are for no apparent reason.
“[Trash collection fees are] included in the rent and it’s required, but they sent out an email saying that nobody’s even gonna come pick up our trash, and it’s been like this for a month and a half now,” Mosley told Capital B Atlanta on Friday. “Even now, we have a $60 fee on our rent and we don’t know why. And they won’t tell us why.
“[Management] said that if we don’t finish our payment for last month before the end of this month, then, yeah, we’re gonna get evicted,” Mosley said. “I’m gonna take them to court, so I’m really not too bothered by it.”
The DeKalb County Solicitor General’s office on Friday confirmed it has two open cases against Lakeview’s owners for code enforcement violations.
One violation was for exposed wiring in two separate buildings on the property, according to the office’s public relations manager, Sharon Johnson. The other was for having open storage of trash and debris, and an unsecured crawl space.
Representatives for Lakeview failed to appear at the company’s Aug. 18 arraignment, which was rescheduled for Sept. 15, Johnson said.
One tenant, who asked not to be named, compared the place and some of the animals that roam the grounds to “Chilligan’s Island,” the fictitious rundown resort featured in a classic episode of the sitcom Martin.
“The animal that’s on that show, we’ve seen that running around,” the unnamed tenant said.
Lakeview tenants like Fred Butler, 66, a retired construction worker, said the complex seems like a solution for many low-income Black families struggling to find what little quality affordable housing remains in DeKalb County. The complex is home to an estimated 540 tenant households, according to multiple listing websites.
“People move in because they can’t do no better,” Butler said. “Don’t come here.”
Butler said management “scammed” him and his disabled wife, Patricia, by raising their rent shortly after they moved in three years ago. He was one of several people who said their estimated $1,200 monthly rent bill fluctuates wildly every month.
“I might pay $1,100 this month,” he said. “The next month I’ll pay $1,257.”
He said he recently was billed roughly $400 in unspecified fees, but that management relented when Butler refused to pay.
“I told them ‘Before I pay that shit, I’ll stay on the street,” Butler said.
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