A month after a third-floor water-pipe burst crippled an East Lansing apartment building, some MSU students are still without a home.
As clean-up crews gut apartments and renovate the Delta Commons building, 315 W. Grand River Ave., residents have been forced to relocate until the work is done and the building passes inspections.
The ground level of the building is home to the Listening Ear Crisis Intervention Center and Gumby's Pizza, both of which were also forced out of the building.
"It was a failure of the material of the pipe," said Howard Asch, East Lansing's director of code enforcement and neighborhood conservation. "This is really rare."
The approximately 16,000-square-foot building with 14 apartment units sustained up to $500,000 worth of damage, said the building's owner Evert Kramer.
Supply chain management senior Chad Bishop and his roommate rent one of six units that currently are uninhabitable because of damage.
Bishop was watching the MSU basketball team face off against the University of Kentucky at the BasketBowl in Detroit on Dec. 13 when a friend called his cell phone to tell him his apartment was flooding.
When Bishop returned to his apartment the next morning, his computer, television, DVD player and furniture all were ruined, he said.
"I was able to salvage my clothes and some DVDs, but that's about it," Bishop said.
Bishop and his roommate did not have renter's insurance but are looking into their parents' homeowner's insurance for relief, he said.
In cases where a tenant cannot prove landlord negligence or that the disaster was intentional, the landlord cannot be held responsible, said MaryAnn Pierce, director of clinical programs at MSU-DCL College of Law.
Pierce supervises the Rental Housing Clinic, 541 E. Grand River Ave., which provides legal assistance to low-income renters. The clinic advocates the importance of renter's insurance - an option that could save tenants thousands of dollars if a disaster occurs.
"Students don't want to pay the $125 to get the insurance," Pierce said. "Guess what - that's the risk you take. This is exactly the type of thing that insurance was meant to cover."
Listening Ear Coordinator Joe Glass was working in the building when the pipe began to leak. By the end of the day, Glass was soaked from head to toe.
"It started dripping a little, and we put down some buckets," he said. "It started as a couple of drips, but after an hour or so, there were waterfalls coming from the ceiling."
The Listening Ear lost all of its furniture and computer network hardware. Glass said he estimated damages of more than $15,000.
The center, which is run by volunteers, is funded primarily through donations and serves 13,000 clients per year.
After moving to one temporary location, the Listening Ear is now operating out of a suite in the Northwind Executive Park, 5020 Northwind Drive. The increased work and stress of dealing with the disaster has left some of the volunteers weary, Glass said.
"People burn out, and it's really hard spending 30 hours here when you should only be spending 10," Glass said. "But no matter what happens, our call volume still stays up."
The group plans to return to the renovated building at the end of the month, Glass said.
Gumby's Pizza also sustained damages from the flood, but Gumby's management could not be reached because the store closed temporarily.
Kramer said he hopes to have repairs to his building completed and all of the tenants moved in by Jan. 24.
"We have temporary housing for residential tenants at Woodland Lakes Apartments, if requested," Kramer said in response to written questions asked by The State News.
In the meantime, Bishop is staying at a friend's house and calling a couch his bed for a few weeks.
Bishop said his landlord never offered an alternative place to live but has promised to reimburse him and his roommate for every day they are displaced.
"It's been an extreme inconvenience," Bishop said. "It would be nice to come back home to a place where I could stay."
