An Estero woman is turning to Fox 4 for help, after she says her leaky roof at Heatherstone at Rookery Pointe is damaging her ceiling. She says her property management company won't pay for the repairs because they claim it was caused by Hurricane Irma, making her liable for the cost.
But the woman, who does not want to be identified due to a domestic situation, says the hurricane was over four months ago and that this damage is more recent. A roofing inspection report seems to agree.
"The company came in and said 'no, this is not hurricane damage, this is wear and tear,'" she said Thursday.
She said the roof inspector crawled into her attic to get an idea of the nature of the damage.
"He said, 'I'm looking at daylight from the ceiling to outside,'" the woman said. "The guy told me I can have mold in there."
She called the property manager for Heatherstone to ask if the property management association, Resort Management, would be paying for the roof repairs.
"He said 'well we just had an inspection throughout the whole community, and anything that happened is the homeowner's responsibility because it's related to Hurricane Irma,'" she said. "I said 'wait a minute, the hurricane happened four months ago.'"
She said the property manager, David Hurst, suggested she contact Crown Roofing for another inspection, which she did.
Their report concludes: "Due to overall age, weathering and/or physical damages, the penetration has failed and is in need of replacement." The repair cost was estimated to be $1,250.00.
"They said 'no, that's not hurricane damage,'" she said.
Fox 4 called Hurst, who said he had no knowledge of the situation, but he admitted that Resort Management might be responsible to pay for the roof if its damage was not caused by a hurricane. .
UPDATE: Crown Roofing returned a call Friday morning, to say that their representative did not tell the home owner that they could rule out the hurricane as contributing to the cause of the damage to the roof.
