Two former residents of The Homestead apartment complex in downtown Carbondale filed a class-action lawsuit on July 13 on behalf of themselves and other current and former tenants at the property against their corporate landlord alleging poor living conditions, eviction threats and hidden junk fees.
The suit claims the property’s owner and management failed to address residents’ complaints about a yearslong, severe cockroach infestation exacerbated by water and sewage leaks in violation of Colorado laws that require landlords to maintain safe and habitable conditions.
The lawsuit was filed in the Denver County District Court against the limited liability company Carbonfield Investment Group — an entity controlled by Denver-based Elkco Properties — that bought the complex in 2019, according to Garfield County property records.
According to its website, the real estate investment company manages “more than 2,000 apartment units and approximately 1.5 million square feet of retail and mixed-use commercial real estate throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Michigan, Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri.”
Elkco Properties founder and president Stephen F. Elken — who is listed as the registered agent for about 100 limited liability companies based in Colorado, including entities that own properties in Aspen and Gypsum — provided a brief statement July 31 that suggested that the company intends to challenge the claims made in the lawsuit.
“We have no comment on the pending litigation, which is groundless. Our legal counsel will be responding to this frivolous lawsuit in court filings,” said the statement provided by Elken.
Denver-based tenants’ rights attorney Benjamin DeGolia is representing the former residents of the apartment complex located at 900 Garfield Ave. in Carbondale, which according to the lawsuit has 58 units.
“I've worked on many cases involving pest infestations, and this is by far the worst cockroach infestation I've seen in my career,” DeGolia said. “For years, this landlord did absolutely nothing about the cockroach infestation that was really pervasive throughout the entire property.”
The Homestead, which is a block from Carbondale’s main street, consists of three buildings with a mix of one- and two-bedroom units and an outdoor common area with a children’s playground.
“It's one of few multifamily apartment complexes in Carbondale where a family can rent a unit for less than $2,000 a month,” DeGolia said.
DeGolia said the lower rent is attractive for families and working people, many of whom are Spanish-speaking.
“It's often those tenants who are most likely to be exploited by corporate landlords,” DeGolia said. “We know that there's very limited affordable housing in the Roaring Fork Valley, … and that makes it that much more important that we take steps to protect our tenants who need access to dignified, affordable housing.”
In the lawsuit, the former residents also claim that their landlord unlawfully charged them and others hidden “junk fees” not initially disclosed as part of the advertised rent costs and threatened some tenants who complained about the cockroach infestation with eviction or inflated move-out fees when they asked to be let out of their lease early.
If the residents are successful in their lawsuit, DeGolia estimates that more than 200 current and former tenants of The Homestead would be eligible to receive some or all of their rent payments back depending on how long they lived at the property.
“We'll ask the court to certify a class of all tenants who resided at the property from three years before the lawsuit was filed, which means June 2023, all the way until the date that notice is sent out to the class, which will likely be sometime next year — so probably we're talking about a four-year period,” DeGolia said. “We'll then ask a jury to award a full rent abatement for this entire period, and if they do, every tenant will get that rent back.”
Living with cockroaches and plumbing leaks
Sammy Rodrigo is one of the two former Homestead residents who filed the July 13 class-action suit.
Rodrigo, who is originally from Fort Collins, met her now-husband, Bill, on a dating app while he was living in Carbondale and working in Aspen.
“We fell in love, and I moved up to Carbondale after we got married,” Rodrigo said. “I always wanted to live in the mountains, so I was really excited to move there.”
In September 2022, they found a two-bedroom apartment at The Homestead for about $1,900 per month and started building a home and community together.
“We were part of the Orchard Church and their community garden, we were part of the local gym, we played tons of pickleball, we went to lots of First Fridays and we skied a bunch,” Rodrigo said. “We also won the ‘Our Town, One Table’ event one year, … so we were a big part of the town and really loved calling Carbondale our home.”
Shortly after they moved into their new apartment at The Homestead, Rodrigo started noticing an unusual number of cockroaches.
“I would find roaches in every room: the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, … they were in our bed, on our plates in the cabinet, in the shower, in our pantry food, in the fridge — it was horrible” Rodrigo said.
She tried cleaning and putting out sticky traps for them, but nothing seemed to help.
“We cleaned all the time, at least every other day, including monthly deep-cleans, and the roaches were still bad year-round,” Rodrigo said. “I would set up sticky traps, and sometimes they'd fill up in a week with like 50 cockroaches in them.”
Rodrigo’s husband had previously lived in a different unit with roommates for several years at The Homestead and told her they had issues with cockroaches too.
She suspected that the infestation was being exacerbated by water and sewage leaks in their building. She also spoke with several neighbors in different buildings at The Homestead and confirmed that they had experienced similar problems with cockroaches and sewage leaks.
“We had a dishwasher in our unit, but we never used it because it always smelled like a sewage system and it leaked once or twice and flooded our kitchen,” Rodrigo said. “I also heard about issues where people would be in the shower and someone would flush the toilet in a unit next to them, and it would push sewage into their shower — that happened once to us, and it happened to one of our friends.”
Rodrigo runs her own marketing agency and works from home, and she said the cockroaches and sewage leaks in their apartment made it difficult to live and work there.
“It was a constant irritation to my everyday life, and just healthy living,” Rodrigo said. “We always paid rent on time, we were fantastic tenants and there's no reason that we should live in poor conditions.”
As one of the few white people living in the apartment complex, Rodrigo said she felt a responsibility to speak up about the issue on behalf of her fellow neighbors, many of whom were immigrants who primarily spoke Spanish.
“They live more cautiously because of how our society treats immigrants,” Rodrigo said. “Landlords take advantage of immigrants and people of brown and Black communities because they can't be as vocal about it sometimes because they might not be in a position where they are safe, and if they speak out, then maybe they'll just get arrested or deported.”
Over the two years she lived there, Rodrigo said she reported the issue to the on-site maintenance staff and property manager, as well as to representatives with Elkco Properties and the town of Carbondale, but the response from her landlord was minimal.
“They only sprayed our apartment once while I was there, and that is not enough to remove an insect infestation,” Rodrigo said. “It was really frustrating that they knew it was such a severe issue and did almost nothing the entire time we lived there.”
When their lease was coming up for renewal in August 2024, Rodrigo and her husband made the decision to move out.
“We loved living in Carbondale, but the cockroaches in our apartment were disgusting,” Rodrigo said. “It just felt hopeless.”
According to DeGolia, the attorney representing the class-action suit, landlords in Colorado are required to take action to maintain safe and habitable conditions when they receive complaints like Rodrigo’s.
“Colorado’s warranty of habitability statute is really clear about a landlord's obligations to remedy uninhabitable conditions once they receive notice of those conditions,” DeGolia said. “They have to engage in substantial remedial action; they do not get to just spray one time and hope that the problem has been resolved.”
Burdensome pest control and hidden fees
This past spring — about a year and a half after Rodrigo left The Homestead — an account representing the landlord posted a response to several negative Google Reviews that its apartment complex had received over the years from Rodrigo and other residents about the cockroach infestation they had dealt with.
“We regularly conduct pest control work, but starting in early 2026 we have undergone an intensive pest control program to eradicate all pests from the property,” the company’s statement said.
In the lawsuit, former Homestead resident Ruby Monica Flores confirmed that the landlord began its first systematic pest control program in November last year.
Flores, the second plaintiff named in the lawsuit, declined an interview for this story, but her account is cited in the class-action complaint.
Like Rodrigo, the lawsuit states that Flores reported sewage leaks and a worsening cockroach infestation to the on-site property manager throughout the two years that she lived at The Homestead from March 2023 to last February.
When conditions had not improved by early 2025, Flores alleged that her family tried to break their lease, but they could not afford the $5,000 lease-break fee that the property manager said they would owe.
Last fall, Flores received a notice from the landlord that they would be undergoing intensive pest control efforts, but the lawsuit alleges that the process placed heavy burdens on tenants with no rent credit or other compensation offered for the disruption.
Every few weeks when the exterminator came, according to the lawsuit Flores and other tenants were required to vacate their units for full days at a time, wrap all their belongings in plastic, deep-clean thoroughly, personally repair any water leaks and hand over spare keys to management.
According to the lawsuit, Flores’ first treatment was scheduled for Thanksgiving Day; when she objected, management allegedly threatened to terminate her lease, forcing her to cancel her holiday plans to comply. The exterminator never showed up that day, the lawsuit says.
“The notices that were posted on tenants’ doors at this property are the most threatening notices I've ever seen,” DeGolia said, adding that tenants were notified in writing that if they did not comply with the strict preparation requirements, they could face automatic lease termination.
When Flores and her family moved out in February, she claimed her unit was still infested with cockroaches.
According to DeGolia, residents such as Flores and Rodrigo also faced what he described as hidden “junk fees,” including utilities and liability insurance fees, that were not initially advertised to prospective tenants as part of their monthly rent, allegedly in violation of state law.
“The Colorado Consumer Protection Act requires [landlords] to be transparent in their advertising by including any fees that tenants will have to pay as part of their rental of a unit at the property, and this landlord doesn't do that,” DeGolia said. “They advertise the base rent amount on their website, and then only after a tenant has invested significant time and cost, including application fees, do they then disclose the true amount of rent that tenants will be required to pay.”
A one-bedroom unit that was available on The Homestead’s website as of Monday was listed for $1,750 per month, with a $25 application fee and $2,500 security deposit, but did not include any mention of monthly utilities or insurance charges.
The lawsuit also alleges that these hidden fees are inflated beyond the actual cost that the landlord pays for utilities and liability insurance.
“We have also seen that this landlord has increased the fees for utilities without the consent of their tenants and beyond the amounts that were agreed to in the lease agreements,” DeGolia said.
Spreading awareness of tenants’ rights
For Anna Belinski-Huber, a housing attorney with local nonprofit Alpine Legal Services, making sure that residents and landlords are familiar with Colorado’s habitability laws and tenants’ rights is a critical part of ensuring that people have a safe, habitable place to live.
In her work with Alpine Legal Services, Belinski-Huber specializes in helping the most vulnerable populations, often people with lower incomes.
“For many of us, if we were in a housing situation [with] mold or cockroaches or lack of hot water, we would move,” Belinski-Huber said. “The issue becomes when you can't afford it, and you are stuck in your housing because it's the cheapest thing you can find, and the alternative is homelessness, and most of my clients are in that position.”
Through her work with Alpine Legal Services, Belinski-Huber leads information sessions about tenants’ rights and facilitates tenant-landlord mediation.
“Colorado actually has really great laws for tenant habitability,” said Belinski-Huber. “You are guaranteed certain basic health and safety standards, regardless of your type of tenancy or lease agreement.”
But according to Belinski-Huber, residents who experience issues such as those alleged in the lawsuit against The Homestead may not know what rights they have or what actions they can take if those rights are being violated.
“So the first thing that tenants should do if they're experiencing any sort of pest infestation, mold, malfunctioning heat, lack of water or hot water — all those kinds of things — is notify your landlord in writing,” Belinski-Huber said. “After you notify your landlord in writing, under Colorado law, your landlord has 24 to 72 hours, depending on the severity of the issue, to start dealing with it, and then they have to take reasonable steps to fully remediate the issue.”
If a landlord fails to respond or take action, Belinski-Huber suggested several courses of action, including seeking mediation help from an advocacy organization such as Alpine Legal Services, filing complaints with your local municipality, or considering legal action.
“Advocacy organizations like ours can help to make sure that the landlord knows what their obligations are and that you’re documenting unresolved issues for potential financial compensation,” Belinski-Huber said. “If it’s something that is really systemic — an entire building of residents all experiencing the same issue that the landlord is not resolving, despite being informed of it, … you could also reach out to your city or county for municipal building code enforcement.”
Belinski-Huber said local municipalities often have limited resources to respond to tenant complaints, but they can help put pressure on a property owner.
“They're really more the place to go to put heat on the landlord in an official capacity, and oftentimes that does get landlords to start acting because they want to be in the good graces of the town and the county,” Belinski-Huber said. “But as far as actual enforcement, you know, the hammer coming down, that's where we lean into the state’s habitability statute because that does give tenants legal recourse.”
Residents organizing to form a tenants association can also help them have a greater voice.
“If there are chronic issues, I am a big proponent of tenants getting together and coordinating,” Belinski-Huber said. “Sometimes, when tenants are able to advocate for themselves in a really organized way collectively, landlords and management are more responsive.”
Belinski-Huber views a landlord’s responsibility to provide habitable housing to their tenants as not just a legal obligation, but also a moral one.
“No matter how low your rent is, that's not a cop-out for a landlord — they shouldn't be able to not give someone a habitable place by just charging them less,” Belinski-Huber said. “Everyone is entitled to safe and healthy housing. … That's not a matter of whether or not you make enough money; that is, to me, a very basic human right.”
Rodrigo hopes lawsuit will bring change
After leaving The Homestead in August 2024, Rodrigo and her husband decided to fulfill their dream of traveling around the world.
They found a shared house to rent in Fort Collins that could be an affordable homebase where they could store their belongings while abroad, but the cockroach problem followed them.
“We didn't know that we had cockroaches still living in our furniture from the Carbondale apartment, but they infested the new house we moved into, and we had roommates and they had to deal with that there,” Rodrigo said. “We had to pay to get the whole house cleaned and sprayed, and we had to move all of our stuff out.”
Although the lawsuit could take years to work its way through the court, Rodrigo hopes that it can eventually help hold her former landlord accountable and bring some relief to her fellow residents who experienced similar challenges.
“I also hope that this can be a lesson for all landlords that you have to keep your properties in quality condition, and you have to listen to tenants when they share complaints,” Rodrigo said. “For landlords to know that you can't do this to people, and for people to be reimbursed for the poor conditions they had to live in, is a very reasonable request.”
For now, Rodrigo and her husband are looking into what it would take to rebuild their lives in Carbondale, but they know it might not be possible to find an affordable and dignified place to live in the Roaring Fork Valley.
“We want to go back to that mountain community that we loved, but the housing prices are just so extreme, … it’s just not possible for us, so we’re staying in the Front Range right now,” Rodrigo said. “The Homestead apartments are one of the only affordable options, but I would never want to go back there.”
When it comes to next steps for the lawsuit, DeGolia said the landlord has a “responsive pleading” deadline of Thursday to provide an initial response to the allegations in the lawsuit or file a motion to dismiss the case. They could also request an extension.
“Our goal in this case is to get the class certified, proceed to trial and ask a jury to give these tenants their rent back,” DeGolia said. “They were subjected to horrible conditions over years, but month after month they still had to pay their rent.”
Editor’s Note: Aspen Journalism’s data desk editor Laurine Lassalle contributed reporting for this story.
