Raleigh family says apartment management left them with collapsed roof for 10 days - including Christmas

Jonas and Alicia Welcher, who live in The Grove Apartments in Raleigh, say they had a leaking roof for about two weeks. They say they've been documenting the growing leak since September and contacted the rental office multiple times, warning them the roof would likely collapse – and on Dec. 18, it finally did.

"I heard a big explosion - boom!" Jonas Welcher recalls. "That's when I saw the ceiling and everything falling out into the hallway."

He said he's thankful his wife wasn't in the bathroom at the time of the collapse. "(She) could have gotten seriously hurt or killed," he said.

Insulation, sheet rock and water flooded everywhere.

"It was just a mess. Bath rugs, bath towels, flood mats, trash can – everything was destroyed," he said. "It just looked like a bomb went off."

Welcher says he's put in three work orders since September about the leak, but the workers who came out didn't do enough to solve the issue.

"They tap two times, and they're gone," he said. "I said, you guys really need to do something about this roof because it's going to collapse. The cylinder is going to collapse. Nobody came. And it collapsed."

After the roof collapsed, Welcher went to the office and showed them photos. He says he was told the roofers would be there within days to fix it, but no roofers ever showed up. Instead, the complex had maintenance come and put plastic up to cover the hole – but heavy rain in recent days is causing the plastic to dip low as it fills with rain water.

Welcher says the only solution offered by management is a $472 credit towards his rent. He pays $1,000 a month, and it's due.

"I should have been a top priority on their list after Christmas," he said.

He says he visited property management on Wednesday, but the only person at the desk was a new employee, and nobody from management was available.

Before the holiday, Welcher says there was discussion of moving to a different apartment, but management told him all the other units are full. He also says he and his wife could have gone to a hotel, but they had family coming for Christmas and didn't want them to have to stay in a hotel.

With that in mind, Welcher said he asked management to just put some plastic over the ceiling to keep the cold air out. That would have worked as long as a more permanent fix followed.

When that didn't happen, Welcher said, the problem was exacerbated by recent rain.

"We're concerned about the rest of the ceiling collapsing, and I'm scared to use the bathroom," he said.

WRAL News has reached out to The Grove apartment complex, but they have yet to return messages.