An out-of-town investor bought a Sacramento apartment complex. Now its renters are organizing

Jessica Barreto thought that she stumbled on a modest find in an otherwise tough renters’ market when she moved into Sacramento’s Harlow Apartment Complex in March 2020.

She had just given birth to her daughter and was able to rent a one-bedroom apartment in North Highlands, an area that she liked, for $1,000 a month.

The complex didn’t have many amenities, but she said that she liked her neighbors and appreciated that the facilities were kept up with responsive management.

Now she and some of her neighbors are at odds with new landlords who bought the complex in November. The tenants allege the new owners, Trion Properties, are letting living conditions deteriorate and attempting to drive them out.

“I used to have friends that visited and asked me if there were any apartments available,” said Dimitrii Savanu, a Harlow resident for four years. “Now when they come, they ask me ‘what happened to this place?’ There’s trash everywhere.”

Trion Properties, a private equity real estate firm based in West Hollywood and Miami, Florida, took ownership of the complex in November. Its representatives did not respond to requests for comment on this story.

It bought six multi-family complexes around Sacramento late last year and trumpeted the purchase in a rental industry publication.

“Relative affordability and high quality of life has made Sacramento one of the most in-demand markets in the country,” Trion’s managing director of acquisitions Farhan Mahmood said in a December interview with Yield PRO, a multi housing news site. “By enacting strategic value-add enhancements to the interiors and exteriors, we aim to improve the quality of life for residents while maximizing returns for our investors.”

Instead of enhancements for them, current tenants say that they are footing the bill and paying the price for Trion’s vision of the future.

Since the takeover, residents reported seeing leaking sprinklers and broken pipes around the complex not tended to and trash piling up in their communal bins from remodelings. Some of them also faced unexplained utility fee increases.

Six months later, Barreto and her neighbors, now known as the Harlow Tenants Union, are demanding that Trion meet with them.

At a press conference on June 29, they called for their current property manager to be replaced, more of say in contract services after the utility hikes, and that their homes be maintained as they were before the takeover.

Eviction notices

Tammy Freemeyer dropped off her rent check at the office’s designated slot as she had been for the past 15 years after Trion took ownership of Harlow.

Then, three-day eviction notices started appearing on her door.

When she opened up her account online, her bills said that she missed her rent payments and had to pay late fees.

Trion told her that it never received any of her checks, so she tried again through other methods such as online payment, only to have them turn her away for not paying their extra fees.

“I shouldn’t have to pay a late fee, let alone have to go through all of this because they can’t be organized,” Freemeyer said.

She turned to her neighbors for help, who also reported having similar problems. They started hosting weekly meetings at the complex’s courtyard and spread the word across the apartment community’s nearly 90 residents.

Residents at the rally last week said that interactions with Trion management have only gotten worse since then.

“When you ask for stuff now, you can feel the tension,” said Barreto. “It’s not a good environment.”

A negative review on Google

Savanu said that at first, he wanted to be patient with Trion. But after work orders for his bathroom went unanswered for up to a month, he decided to write a negative review on Google.

Since then, he said that his interactions with the property manager have deteriorated. “The more I follow up on my issues, the less she responds,” Savanu said. “People live here. They need to try for us. We’re not asking for a lot.”

Harlow renters earlier this year took their complaints to the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, which advocates for renters. They received help addressing unexplained utility fee hikes that a Trion contractor later dropped after KXTV (ABC 10) aired a story about the charges.

Luis Fernando Anguiano, an organizer with the advocacy group, said that it is important for residents to communicate with one another so that they know their rights and that they are not alone.

“The tenants here are paying their rent on time. They’re doing everything right. So the landlord needs to hold up their end of the bargain and make sure people feel safe and taken care of.”

This story was originally published July 9, 2022 at 5:25 AM.