The Rats, Cold Water and Court Order That Continue to Plague Troubled South Dallas Apartments

Let's be clear: The 14-unit apartment complex on Holmes Street, around the corner from the Forest Theater in South Dallas, is in far better shape today than it was in late May. The broken front and rear gates though which drug dealers, prostitutes and their customers came and went at all hours has been fixed. The battered mailboxes that would not lock have been replaced. The loose railing along the second-floor balcony has been tightened. The burned-out car has been towed from the parking lot. And the place no longer smells like an unflushed toilet.I've driven past the place a few times in recent months, noticed the cosmetic repairs and thought things had gotten better since the summer, when Terry Flowers, headmaster at down-the-street St. Philip's School and Community Center, called the complex a neighborhood plague. Hadn't heard a single complaint from anyone, including the city attorneys who took the building's owner to court in 2015 or the residents who went court on May 31 in the hopes of convincing a judge to punish the do-nothing landlord who sneered at them from the counsel table.  Continue reading...