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We try to keep out troublemakers, apartment officials say
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The Vindicator (Youngstown)
The Westchester Executive Apartments in Austintown, site of a December 4th shooting that left one man dead and another wounded.
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Odomie A. Wellington, 31, was found dead Saturday at the Westchester Executive Apartments in Austintown.
By Elise Franco
Stricter regulations on who can rent an apartment aren’t always enough to keep out undesirables and the problems that may follow.
The recent murder of Odomie A. Wellington, 31, at Westchester Executive Apartments in Austintown has some apartment managers wondering who actually is living in their buildings.
Wellington, whose address was listed as the Westchester Executive Apartments, 4884 Westchester Drive, was found dead Dec. 4 with multiple gunshot wounds.
He was in the driver’s seat of a white Cadillac parked outside the apartment complex. Alekum McLendon, 21, of Youngstown was also shot and injured. Austintown police have no leads on a suspect.
While investigating the crime, Austintown police discovered that though Wellington, a convicted felon, resided in the complex, the lease was in his mother’s name.
Westchester property manager Bart Dockry said usually it’s difficult to know if someone is living in an apartment under false pretenses.
He said though there is a clause in the lease that says subletting isn’t allowed, there are only a few ways to know if that occurs.
“A lot of times what happens is we get information from other tenants,” he said, noting such information is confidential.
“I would never blame anybody for not getting involved. It’s a risk to them,” he said. “But there are times that, when it’s a reasonable concern, people will express or voice it to me.”
Dockry and Craig Tareshawty, apartment manager of Brandywine Apartments on the West Side of Youngstown, both said their applicants go through a criminal background and credit check.
Tareshawty said his standards have increased during the past two decades.
“When I first got in the rental business I would shake a person’s hand and be able to read them, but a lot has changed in 22 years,” he said. “I used to just check credit, then I started checking criminal [backgrounds].”
After unknowingly renting to a registered sex offender – what he termed “your worst nightmare” – Tareshawty said he began checking for that as well.
In Wellington’s case, Dockry said it’s likely his mother put the apartment lease in her name because her son, who spent time in jail for the 2000 shooting of 13-month-old Kyreese Haymon, would not have been approved on his own.
“Obviously, as a convicted felon, he would have a dickens of a time getting approved,” Dockry said. “[His mother] never gave me the impression that he was ‘living there.’ She told me he was a frequent visitor.”
Dockry said prospective tenants go through a rigorous application process and unless something in a background check is flagged, he has no reason to be suspicious.
“We certainly don’t rent to convicted felons or people who have had a bad rental record,” he said. “My responsibility is to bring in quality neighbors.”
Tareshawty said he relies heavily on night-time security patrols to look for trends on who is coming in and out of the complex.
“I try very hard to be as aware as I possibly can, but I also lean on my security who works at night. They’re driving around and they’re watching,” he said. “They can tell me if there’s an apartment that doesn’t sleep at night. It’s my job to talk with them and determine if it’s someone I need to remove.”
Tareshawty said the incident at Westchester is something that could happen anywhere.
“His mother applied for the apartment, signed at the dotted line, and then someone else moved in,” he said. “It’s not that tough to do. And it’s sad because it’s hard to screen for that kind of thing.”
Dockry went a step further, saying that he is confident the shooting was an isolated incident.
“It was an extreme anomaly, and not just for Westchester,” he said. “I think that argument would hold up at most places probably in the three-county area.”
Austintown Police Chief Bob Gavalier said most of the calls that come in to the department from area apartments are thefts from automobiles and domestic violence.
“That [murder] was very out of the ordinary,” he said.
Gavalier said calls to the many township complexes have been steady in recent years.
“I really haven’t seen an increase in calls to any of the apartments,” he said.
When it comes to quality of the apartments in Austintown, Gavalier said for the most part they’re on a level playing field.
“I’d say there’s not any one that sticks out as better or worse than any others,” he said. “Management seems to be pretty good at keeping a hand on who they’re renting to.”
If anything, Dockry said, the standard of renters has increased over the years, which is due, in part, to stricter applications.
“I think the quality of renters is always going up because it’s become a more accepted niche,” he said. “It’s getting to be an older populous and becoming a more stable situation.”
Tareshawty said renting is becoming a more attractive option to young adults, families and elderly people, alike, in a time where the economy is forcing many to sell their homes.
“Banks are lending, but their standards have tightened up,” he said. “Some of the people who might have been considering owning a house may not be able to as easily.”