Former Wold tenants speak out after landlord sells properties
Former tenants who lived at a property belonging to the Andrew Wold, owner of the apartment building that collapsed in downtown Davenport, are speaking out about their time renting from the landlord.
Andrea Wallace and Sarah Petre lived in one of the seven properties Wold recently sold. They lived at a home on Belle Ave. in Davenport for about a year, and they say they moved out because of problems with the building. The new owners have already been working on exterior siding and restoring the inside of the building, and both tenants explained why that was needed. “The ceiling started falling in and the shelves fell off the wall,” Wallace said. “The toilet started to fall through the bathroom floor.”
The tenants say the building needed extensive repairs that it’s getting now, but very little was done at the time. “There was a leak in the roof, there was a hole in the roof,” Petre said. “He put a tarp over it, and that was it. He never actually fixed the issue. The paint started bubbling and bulging and then the ceiling just fell to the floor.”
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Wallace says she suffered injuries on the property. “In the lease, it said that his people were in charge of cutting the grass and snow removal and salting the sidewalks,” Wallace said. “Well, they never did, so I actually slipped and broke my leg on the ice. When I told them about it, they basically just gave me a month’s worth of free rent to not say anything, pretty much.”
Both tenants moved out of the location on Belle Avenue prior to the partial building collapse in May. They say they’re thankful nothing as serious as losing their lives happened to them. “It’s really sad what those people had to go through, and I feel sorry for them,” Wallace said. “I actually, like, cried because of it. I just felt so bad for those people because he’s just an awful landlord.”
The Scott County Assessor reported the property was sold to QC Rental Group LLC for $73,000 in October. Wallace and Petre want the new company to improve the building. “I hope that they are able to live there comfortably unlike we were,” Wallace said. “I hope that the people who own it now are able to actually take care of it and get it in working order, because it would’ve been a really nice place to live, if it would’ve been well taken care of.”
The tenants say they have still not received their security deposits, and are still paying medical bills from injuries they suffered on the property.
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