Story by Courtney Cho
Jim Hinkley says it wasn’t always like this.
It used to be a wonderful – no, beautiful – place to live, he says, pointing to the lush foliage and greenery outside his window. Sometimes, he can see deer from his window. There was a buck roaming around just the other week.
After separating from his wife four years ago, Hinkley, 83, needed a place of his own. A retired city planner who served on the Chatham County Planning Board – and Chatham County resident of more than 30 years – Hinkley found Creekside Apartments and moved in.
“It was great,” he said, leaning on his walker for support. “But now, well, just look around.”
Hinkley’s ceilings are peeling off, and his home smells of must and mildew. The ceiling in his office drips rainwater when it storms, and his bedroom ceiling has stains on it. The carpet looks like it hasn’t been cleaned for years, because it hasn’t been. His fridge has been leaking for days, maybe weeks – he can’t remember how long, just that management has stopped responding to his calls, hence the towel on his kitchen floor. He’s careful when he enters and exits his home, moving slowly, not because of age, but because his walker gets dangerously caught in the large cracks on the pathway.
When he calls the management company, Prestige Management Group (PMG), he gets transferred from person to person – if they answer at all. He leaves messages. They make false promises, set dates and say they’ll do things, but they rarely follow through. Sometimes, he gets yelled at. And most of the time, nothing happens.
Hilary Pellegrino, a 64-year-old retired psychiatric clinician who moved to Creekside from Bellingham, Washington last November, echoes Hinkley’s complaints. After struggling with sight loss and vision problems for years, she finally looked up ‘best eye clinic in the county’ and came across Duke. She remembered driving past Creekside years ago while visiting friends.
“I thought it was nice,” she said.
As soon as she arrived, she realized she was wrong.
“I was completely appalled,” Pellegrino said. Windows fell out when she tried to open them, her stove was broken for weeks, blinds fell off when she touched them, the kitchen sink leaked, bugs were common and “much more.” She was at City Hall within weeks, being shuffled from office to office and department to department.
“I was shocked to find Pittsboro seemed to have no enforceable laws, no tenant rights advocate, no building code inspector,” she recalled. “No one to whom an irresponsible, negligent landlord is accountable.”
After talking to the other residents, many of whom are disabled, elderly or low-income, she found that the conditions had become normal for them after PMG took over three years ago. Many had given up on trying to get repairs. Others became motivated for periods of time before retreating back to “fear and hopelessness.”
But Pellegrino refused to give up and stay silent. She was eventually joined by another resident, Maryphyllis Horn of the Creekside Tenants Association (CTA), and they began reaching out to neighbors together. Some began speaking out about their living conditions at recent Board of Commissioners meetings, despite fear of reprisal from management.
Mayor Cindy Perry was shocked upon hearing the complaints. She sent an email Tuesday to the landlord and management company expressing her concerns and threatening an investigation.
“My role [is to] shame the landlord into action using political pressure,” she said.
Paul Messick Jr., Pittsboro’s town attorney, said he didn’t know whether Creekside’s conditions would be a violation of the law and that an inspector would have to make that assessment.
“The law does require a landlord to provide a habitable place for people to live, and is responsible for fixing units that are not,” he explained. “But the landlord and tenants have relationships established by contracts or leases, which is separate from any involvement on the part of the town.”
Mayor Perry is waiting to hear back from the landlord. In the meantime, she plans to talk to the other commissioners to try and get a county inspector to put some additional pressure on management.
“It’s like anything else. It’s going to take some time,” she said to residents at a CTA meeting Tuesday evening.
Residents don’t mind – they just want things to change. They’re used to waiting.
“Stomping on the vulnerable, elderly and disabled is wrong,” Pellegrino said. “That’s exactly what’s going on here at Creekside.”
PMG could not be reached for comment.
