ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) — Residents at Ashley Riverside Apartments say most of the trash has been cleared from the complex, but their concerns are far from over, and some fear the filth will return.

Tenants say trash bins overflowed for weeks without pickup, and the grass went uncut for so long that some residents hired their own lawn care workers and mowed the grass outside their units themselves.

Community activist Pastor Donny Green, who has been speaking on behalf of tenants who fear retaliation, said the conditions have created more than just an eyesore.

“The first thing that comes to my mind is how you got these people in bondage,” Green said. “You got them trapped in a jungle of weeds and trash.”

Green said snakes have also been spotted on the property — a major concern, he said, since children also reside there.

“Safety hazards. Environmental. That’s what I see,” he said.

Several tenants reached out to Green with their concerns, but said they did not want to be identified out of fear of being targeted by management.

“They don’t want to be picked out, to be picked on in this situation,” Green said. “They are already scraping pennies to pay their rent. Some of these tenants are paying over $1,000 a month. They don’t want to be thrown out of a place that they’re paying for.”

Some tenants at the downtown complex have reportedly resorted to cutting their own grass rather than waiting for the complex.

“They asked me, ‘Hey Pastor, do you have a lawn mower? I cut my own grass,’” Green said. “They trimmed their own hedges around the area that they live because they didn’t want to feel as if they was living in a jungle.”

“Why are you living like you’re homeless when you shouldn’t be?” he added.

Diana Brown, the City of Albany’s Ward 6 commissioner, confirmed the complex is now under new management and said funds for the complex were frozen for approximately two weeks during the transition.

The city stepped in to resolve the issue, Commissioner Brown said, by bringing in the City of Albany Code Enforcement.

“It puts pressure on them because fines can be assessed daily, depending on what the judge would like to do,” Alejandro Farrell, the new code enforcement director, said. “In most jurisdictions, these are misdemeanors — so the fines for each charge could be one thousand dollars per day, per violation. It would just be up to the judge and the solicitor at that time how they proceed.”

It is unclear when full operations, including routine maintenance and landscaping, will resume under the new management team, Commissioner Brown said.

Green said he believes the on-site management may not be entirely to blame.

“When they’re working with limited resources, they don’t have the money right there in front of them,” he said. “The people that actually own the property somewhere else, they’re not supplying the resources for operating costs.”

Video obtained by WALB shows roll-off containers packed with trash bags, boxes, and discarded furniture. Additional trash was found piled on the ground and tossed over a fence, which residents describe as an attempt to hide the waste from public view.

When approached for comment, the on-site management team declined to speak.

Green said he has seen similar situations in Albany resolve temporarily, only to return to the same conditions.

“I’ve been to other places and brought other places to the forefront, and not long after that, it went right back to where it used to be,” he said.

Green hopes this situation is different and calls on the broader community to get involved.

“What we’re trying to do right here in Dougherty County, Albany, is trying to revitalize our city — to make it that city that we say is the Good Life City,” Green said. “It’s going to take the people’s voice to get involved, to join with my voice so that we can take care of these problems.”

Green also noted the complex’s location, just steps from the Albany Civic Center and near downtown, makes its appearance especially important to the city’s image.

“People come to the Civic Center to events and stuff, and they might want to come and say, ‘Hey, I want to stay in Albany,’” Green said. “If they see this place over here looking good, I want to put in an application to see if I can stay here. But who would come and stay when you got a beautiful building, and you’re letting it run down?”

Residents at Ashley Riverside told Green they want to know their monthly rental fees are being spent to keep their homes clean, safe, and livable.

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