Tenants at Evans Manor, a Southside apartment building owned by the Berkeley Student Cooperative, have claimed significant maintenance delays, health issues and three-day “pay rent or quit’’ notices.
After leasing the building to Victoria Associates for more than three decades, the BSC resumed ownership of the building April 30, 2025 and now runs it as an apartment, having been legally barred from running it as a cooperative.
As first reported by The Daily Californian in October 2025, alleged maintenance delays, including heating issues, flooding and pests, continue to plague the building, according to tenants. Mold remediation is reportedly underway, according to a BSC spokesperson.
Reporters from the Daily Cal toured the building on Jan. 30 and found fallen ceiling tiles in common areas, revealing mold in the ceiling, standing water, dead rats and rusting pipes wrapped with peeling duct tape. Reporters also experienced mold exposure symptoms, including nausea, headaches and shortness of breath after visiting the building for 20 minutes while wearing N95 masks.
Multiple tenants spoke to the Daily Cal over the course of six months about alleged health impacts from the building’s conditions, including fatigue, coughing and respiratory issues.
The BSC and the building’s tenants remain sharply divided over which party bears responsibility for maintenance delays.
Berkeley Student Cooperative orders tenants to pay rent or leave amid habitability concerns
The BSC issued three-day “pay rent` or quit” notices to 26 tenants in May 2025.
Berkeley Rent Board Chair Solomon Alpert sent an email in May 2025 to BSC Executive Director Joshua “Yoshi” Fenton, expressing his concerns that the “eviction notices” were issued in an attempt to empty Evans Manor prior to the potential sale of the building.
“Unfortunately, we’re not able to pause rent collection or any needed and legal eviction,” Fenton said in an email response obtained by the Daily Cal. “We have to manage the building responsibly and that does mean collecting rent and similarly evicting tenants who refuse to pay.”
In an email, BSC President Joshua Ruiz claimed that the BSC had not filed paperwork for eviction on any resident, and claimed that the three-day notices were “standard process that [have] been used in the building” prior to the BSC’s reassumption of management.
The Berkeley Rent Board website says a three-day notice is a type of eviction notice.
“A landlord who begins eviction proceedings on tenants residing in a legally uninhabitable building may be in violation of city law,” said Peter Selawsky, a lawyer from the Eviction Defense Center representing multiple tenants at Evans Manor, in an email.
The Rent Board’s wrongful eviction website details that if a unit is declared substandard because of a pest infestation or visible mold growth, among other conditions, a landlord may not issue a three-day notice.
The board also details the landlord may not demand or collect rent if they have received a written citation requesting the repair of substandard conditions, the conditions have persisted for 35 days after the citation and the conditions were not caused by the tenant.
“We in no way have or intend to attempt to evict folks in advance of anything,” Fenton stated in response to Alpert’s claim. “We are only processing evictions for nonpayment; it is not part of a larger strategy other than to encourage everyone to pay rent as the revenue is very important to the organization.”
Alpert also noted in the email correspondence that “ongoing habitability violations” were taking place at the property, which would “significantly weaken the threat of eviction as a lever to get back rent.” Fenton responded that the BSC is addressing maintenance and habitability issues as they arise.
Documents obtained by the Daily Cal reveal the BSC’s concerns over the cost of building maintenance. Citing deferred maintenance issues, low occupancy and a deteriorating building structure, the BSC attempted to sell the building.
Evans Manor was put up for sale by the BSC in June 2025 for $12.5 million through the Pinza Group. Ruiz said the BSC voted to sell the building in November 2025, before the sale fell through.
‘It touches your life’: Tenants struggle with health issues
Evans Manor tenant Katherine Poltoratzky has been living in a motel for four months.
Citing health issues, she vacated her unit in October, and the BSC has been paying for her relocation since Oct. 27, 2025.
Poltoratzky says she has experienced an onset of respiratory issues, including chest pain and severe coughing.
“Financially, I’ve been stressed out, and now I’ve been going to various doctors,” Poltoratzky said. “Not everything’s just paid with insurance. It’s now out of pocket.”
Ruiz said in an email the BSC was “really concerned” when Poltoratzky reached out, citing health and harassment concerns. Ruiz added that the BSC “quickly acted to move (her) into a hotel.”
Poltoratzky is not alone in her concerns. The Daily Cal spoke to multiple tenants who also say they’ve experienced fatigue and respiratory issues while living in Evans Manor.
“There was definitely an apparent cognitive decline,” said Isaiah Audelo, a UC Berkeley undergraduate and Evans Manor tenant.
Hazardous Materials Assessment Inc., which conducted a mold assessment in July and August 2025, discovered multiple strains of mold, including black mold, in living areas and common spaces.
Poltroratzky said she requested the inspection in her previous capacity as the building tenant’s union’s maintenance coordinator. However, Ruiz claimed in an email that the BSC scheduled the testing as part of its “due diligence process” when it regained control of the building.
Subsequently, the BSC proposed mold remediation spraying, which was vetoed by the tenant’s union because, according to residents, the BSC made no plans to relocate them. Ruiz said the BSC attempted to relocate some tenants to begin remediation in specific units, but the tenants refused to relocate. The inspectors recommended for the BSC to conduct thorough remediative containment — the act of sealing off areas impacted by mold — as well as the removal of impacted windowsills and flooring in order to fully remediate the toxins.
Since regaining control of the building, Ruiz asserted that the BSC has spent more than $200,000 on remediation and repairs.
In a December 2025 email, Ruiz claimed that the BSC had “attempted to relocate some tenants to begin mold remediation in their units,” and said that management has “tested the new rooms for mold, had them professionally cleaned, and hired movers but the tenants (had) refused to relocate.”
In February, Ruiz stated that mold remediation was being conducted in the building, with processes “underway or completed depending on the unit” in coordination with the tenant’s union. Ruiz additionally stated that some tenants had been moved into hotels, with others to be relocated within the building.
Poltoratzky additionally claimed that an asbestos report was completed. Despite her multiple requests, the report has not been released to her. In an email, Ruiz said there is no asbestos in the building.
Meanwhile, Poltoratzky’s hotel stay has been extended by the BSC until March 14.
“I remember at one point I was coughing so hard and so much, I thought I was going to get injured,” Poltoratzky said. “I was waking up, coughing, going back to sleep … One of my passions is singing and I don’t sound the same. I’m a soprano and I can’t even reach those higher notes. There are all these other things involved in little ways. It touches your life.”
‘An uphill battle’: Tenants endure maintenance delays
Morgan Welch, another Evans Manor tenant and UC Berkeley graduate, claimed in an email that he spent five and a half months repeatedly asking the BSC to fulfill repair requests regarding water damage, leaks, structural deterioration, mold exposure and pest infestation in his unit before it was addressed.
“From the day we assumed management of the building, we have devoted considerable resources and maintenance staff to the building,” Ruiz said in an email responding to alleged maintenance delays. “I do not believe significant delays have occurred except in instances where tenants have refused entry, ignored communications and in other ways acted in opposition to the work being done.”
According to Welch, when maintenance arrived following months of requests, the team opened the walls and ceiling of his unit Nov. 4, 2025 and found visible mold and water rot.
He left his unit and spent the night in his car.
“I am extremely disappointed and disturbed by how you have been treating me and the other tenants of this building,” Welch said in a formal demand letter to the BSC on Nov. 17. “This has to stop, the inaccurate notices, the lack of proper communication, the delays in communication and resolution for months.”
Welch claimed in the email that the BSC then placed him in another unit on a “night to night” basis for at least two weeks. He claimed the unit had pest issues, and lacked bedding, heat and internet access, Welch said. Ruiz stated that the BSC does not provide bedding to tenants. The following day, the building’s property manager, Jasmine Williams, responded to Welch in an email, telling him she would meet with the BSC’s operations specialist to address the matter.
In an email, Ruiz stated that pest control is being addressed through an “ongoing professional service contract,” which has included “aggressive” pest control services since the BSC reassumed management of the building.
Evans Manor tenants also submitted maintenance requests in December 2025 regarding a lack of heating, according to emails reviewed by the Daily Cal.
Ruiz stated in an email that management had only “recently (become) aware of the full scale of the heating issues” and that the boiler was undergoing a replacement.
Fenton said the BSC holds the previous management, Victoria Associates, responsible for any issues tenants are facing. Chris Hoff, the managing general partner at Victoria Associates, claimed mold and general maintenance had not been an issue during the company’s three-decade management tenure.
“If anyone over there is alleging anything other than the BSC really actively trying to respond to all these things, they’re false allegations,” Fenton said. “The needs are not nonsense, but this whole narrative is not solution-oriented; it’s super toxic, no pun intended.”
Fenton said tenants being “adversarial” has been the “single greatest impediment” to the BSC attempts to address challenges.
“I’ve fought really hard and really long for everything,” Poltaratzky said. “It feels like everything has been an uphill battle with the BSC. I just want to be healthy, and I want this chapter to be over.”