CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- A mother who moved her family out of a Charlotte apartment due to health concerns says the complex added insult to illness by charging her for two months rent after she left.
Kourtney King admits she broke the lease, but says managers at the Greenbryre Apartments told her it was OK due to her concerns.
"This is the mold that's coming through my walls," King said while showing us her apartment in August 2009. "My own doctor told me to move."
King says the mold made her and her children so sick that she had to break the lease two months early for health reasons.
Her doctor's note cites mold as the reason for her illness and her hospitalization. At the time, Greenbryre property managers told us they would help King.
But King says she got a bill of $1,082 for those last two months rent.
King says she shouldn't have been charged because property managers told her it was OK to leave due to her mold concerns.
"I was so angry I just ripped it up," she said.
The bill ended up in collections. We did some checking and discovered that the apartment complex has a new property manager who told us they knew nothing about King's problem.
"I wasn't helped and I gave them plenty of time," King said.
Code enforcement inspected King's apartment after she complained and cited it for "unsanitary conditions."
Greenbryre painted the walls after that inspection. Property management at the time called it mildew, not mold.
"It was clearly black mold," King said. "Nobody should have to live in mold, especially when you have asthma and allergies and you're sick and you have children."
The new property managers at Greenbryre called King Wednesday afternoon and admitted the bill was sent in error and the claim against King was dropped. That means she no longer owes them $1,082.
