An Akron woman, who was frustrated over multiple sewage backups inside her apartment, is moving into a new home thanks to an organization that acquires vacant, dilapidated properties and transforms them into homes for families.
"I was actually really, really happy like, 'Oh my God, I can get into a new home,'" Kimyatta Mason said.
Last month, News 5 spoke with Mason who described disgusting living conditions inside her Hillwood II apartment on Nadia Court. She said raw sewage backed up three times in less than two years, spilling onto her carpet and coming up through her bathroom drain.
"It's over the top. It's the third time that I've known it was feces on the carpet and they haven't tried to move me or anything," Mason said last month.
Mason said her request to management to replace carpets or be moved to another apartment fell on deaf ears, and instead, she was handed a three-day eviction notice.
Workers from the organization Transform Akron saw the story and sent a Facebook message to Mason offering to get her and and her four children into a safe home.
"We're trying to make the footprint in Akron here by helping families in her condition," said construction manager Tom Robinson. "They'll be able to come home every day to a safe home and not have to worry about their children."
The group rehabbed a home for the family on Chittenden Street, complete with a new furnace, new carpet, new windows, updated kitchen and bathroom, new garage roof and new appliances.
Transform Akron has rehabbed for more than 50 homes over the past year with the goal of getting people out of unsafe houses and into safe, functional homes in as little as eight days.
Mason said her rent will be a little higher at her new home, but still affordable. She expects to move her family in within a few weeks.
"To me, it means that they're really trying hard to get us out of poor situations and into better situations," she said.
