In a faded blue three-story apartment building in Liberty City, tenants place buckets on their beds and dressers to catch the deluge of water that falls inside when it rains.
Sometimes the ceilings don’t hold up. Early this year, inside a first-floor apartment, the bedroom ceiling fell on a sleeping 16-year-old and dislocated his neck.
One block north in another complex, inspectors say roaches inundate cabinets and that gaping holes decorate walls and ceilings. Farther south in Overtown, swaths of mold grow on apartment walls in two complexes at Northwest First Court and 17th Street.
The buildings are among nine properties in some of Miami’s poorest neighborhoods and are tied to a couple accused of running slums across the city and elsewhere in the country. Sewage leaks, crumbling staircases, and the flouting of basic local and state licenses have drummed up scores of violations, millions of dollars in fines and, now, a city lawsuit.
