SHEBOYGAN FALLS, Wis. (WTMJ) – It’s every rental property owner’s worst nightmare: someone comes along and causes hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.
Ashley Deutsch, a Wisconsin property owner, said that’s exactly what happened to her.
Deutsch said she has video evidence that tenants intentionally flooded her property while in the building she owns.
“With every step, water sprayed out of the ground,” she said.
According to Deutsch, she is still trying to process what happened and why.
The owner said that starting at about 4 a.m., she began receiving alerts from the camera outside the door showing tenants with drinks in their hands, stumbling and slurring their words.
Deutsch said the tenants left a trail of damage after leaving the water running for hours — 640 gallons of water.
“The sink was clogged with pizza and other things they might have had for dinner,” Deutsch said.
In a video shared by Deutsch, two men can be seen throwing soaked towels, bedding and carpets down the stairs.
The owner says the tenants could also be seen and heard trying to cover up the incident.
“It’s so frustrating to listen to them try to make up lies to excuse their behavior while he’s wringing a towel with his feet,” Deutsch said.
And it wasn’t just the rental apartment that was damaged. The business owner of an apartment on the ground floor was also hit.
Jamie Princen only opened her tattoo studio about nine months ago. But now it is closed until at least the end of September.
“It was just soaked. Hundreds of hours of work went into making this studio what it was, and when I saw all of this, it was kind of ripped away,” Princen said.
According to Princen, they have taken legal action and begun selling items to cover some of the costs of repairing the damage.
Both owners said they are supporting each other in the cleanup effort.
“I think we will come back much stronger,” Princen said.
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