The putrid smell of human waste has permeated Tatyana Boykin’s trailer home for months, forcing her, her sister, their disabled mother and brother, to spend most of the year living out of their car.
The family has photographs of a disconnected pipe beneath their three-bedroom trailer at Hunter Ridge Mobile Home Park that they say has pumped raw sewage into the crawl space beneath their home and caused water with excrement to back flow into their drains, toilet and bathtub.
That hasn’t stopped the property management team at Hunter Ridge — a massive, eviction-plagued trailer park on Tara Road near Jonesboro — from charging Boykin, the only household member on the lease, for monthly rent and sending her an eviction notice in March when she was unable to pay.
The family estimates they’re now four months behind on rent and owe more than $9,000, including about $1,900 in late fees and court costs. They said they fell behind after racking up bills due to their home’s maintenance problems, which might include a faulty electric system that’s led to unusually high Georgia Power bills for a single-wide trailer.
Boykin was due in court on June 1, but she failed to appear after being hospitalized after fainting, vomiting, and having dizzy spells for weeks. Doctors at Piedmont Fayette told them their symptoms are consistent with methane poisoning likely caused by the gas they’ve been inhaling inside their trailer.
The gas was still strong enough to irritate the eyes on Wednesday.
Multiple health sites say methane gas is flammable at high levels when combined with other gases and can lead to death over time. The family was advised not to return to their trailer until the plumbing problem is dealt with, but they say they have nowhere else to go.
“We don’t have the means or funds,” Tatyana’s sister Tajae told Capital B Atlanta. “Even if we did … a lot of people won’t accept people with an eviction on their record.”
“I just want to live in my home, pay my rent, like everybody else,” Tatyana added. “No one should go through any of this just to have a roof over their heads.”
Hunter Ridge’s property management team did not returned Capital B Atlanta’s calls seeking comment.
Multiple tenants at the complex said its parent company, River Valley Communities, hired new property management team leaders after reports from Capital B Atlanta spotlighted its severe problem with serial eviction filings and hazardous maintenance conditions.
In February, Princeton University’s Eviction Lab research team identified Hunter Ridge as the #1 eviction hotspot in metro Atlanta, which led the nation in eviction filings last year. Researchers say evictions are one of the leading causes of the region’s growing homeless population, which was up 6% in January and has been on the rise for four consecutive years.
Public records recently obtained by Capital B Atlanta show Hunter Ridge Mobile Park LLC has been cited for approximately 500 housing code violations since 2019. That includes around 65 plumbing-related violations for facilities, fixtures, and sanitation issues.
Code enforcement officers issued 35 violations following an April 30 quality of life sweep at the behest of Clayton County Commissioner Tashé Allen, who hasn’t responded to phone calls seeking additional comment.
Tatyana’s neighbor, Ciara Daniel, said she, too, has been forced to smell the apparent raw sewage for months. The problem causes her eyes to burn.
“It’s very uncomfortable,” Daniel said. The single mom has been billed more than $1,200 for maintenance problems she said she didn’t cause and has had at least nine eviction cases filed against her since moving in more than three years ago. She is actively looking to move.
“I’m still in the process, but with the pending eviction against me, it’s becoming a little difficult,” she said.
Daniel’s next door neighbor, Shaneece Booker, 38, said she has been plagued with a cockroach infestation ever since her family moved into Hunter Ridge about 10 months ago.
The single mother of three, who runs an Atlanta catering business, has had two evictions filed against her by Hunter Ridge’s parent company, according to Clayton County Court records.
She said the roach problem was evident from the day she first viewed her three-bedroom trailer, but she felt forced to sign the lease because she didn’t have a lot of other housing options at the time.
“They’re everywhere,” Booker said of her cockroaches in her home. “It just takes a long time for maintenance to come out. You have to continuously harass them to get to the property and fix things. I mean, months. It takes months.”
Maj. Sean MacDonald, commander of Clayton County’s housing code enforcement division, said his team is currently investigating two active code enforcement cases at Hunter Ridge, including Boykin’s.
He said the other case is for a roof repair issue at another trailer home. County officials haven’t yet cited Hunter Ridge’s parent company for the alleged problem with Boykin’s plumbing system, which was reported June 17.
“Property manager advised that they believed it’s from a clogged toilet,” MacDonald told Capital B Atlanta on Monday. “They are sending someone out there today to see if that will fix it. We will follow up again tomorrow.”
Tatyana and her family said the problem still isn’t fixed as of Wednesday night. She’s due back in eviction court in August.
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