Mold, Mice, & Mismanagement: What’s Happening at Heritage Village Apartments?
First you spot the welcoming foliage. Then you notice the rust. After that, the situation quickly becomes overwhelming.
When you walk up to the front entrance at Heritage Village Apartments in Lambertville, New Jersey, one of the first things you’ll see are the well-kept hydrangeas flowering in pink, purple, and white near the main entrance.
Heritage Village is a non-smoking, affordable apartment community with 100 senior rental units. The building opened in 2011, and is owned and managed by Community Investment Strategies (CIS), which is based in Lawrenceville, NJ.
If you were drawn to the flowers, you might not have noticed that the car parked in the disabled spot closest to the front door is actually abandoned.
The rubber on the flat rear tires is dry, and the interior is strewn with trash. Residents say the vehicle has been sitting like that for months, if not longer.
Inside the building’s foyer is the Fire Code Certificate of Inspection, which is legally required to be displayed. It was granted in 2020, but expired in 2021.
It’s entirely possible that the building’s certificate of inspection is up to date, but the management just hasn’t gotten around to posting it—for four years.
Inside, plywood sub-flooring lines the hallways, and the drywall has been cut out from along the bottom of the walls, exposing several apartment’s interiors.
Near one of the fire doors, a small sign taped to the floor reads “DO NO STEP.” The edges of the tape have curled and collected enough dirt to make it clear that people have been stepping there—for months.
All of that is unusual enough, and then the elevator adds another disorienting contradiction: floor 3 is the ground floor, and floor 1 is at the top.
What’s Happening?
One night in January of 2025, the fire suppression system at Heritage Village turned on, pouring water and fire foam into residents’ apartments. Not every unit got impacted, but of those that were, significant damage was sustained.
The water that came out of the sprinkler was brown and rusty. It soaked several floors, ruined tenants’ possessions, and displaced many of the residents.
After the emergency, ServPro came to do remediation. They ran industrial dehumidifiers, which sucked moisture from the apartments though rubber hoses and deposited water into plastic garbage containers in the hallways.
One tenant could afford to move away, and did so immediately. Other affected residents were relocated into temporary apartments inside the building.
Renata’s Temporary Apartment
Renata didn’t want photos taken inside of her interim residence.
“It’s my sanctuary,” she said.
Located on an upper floor, her living room has two windows that open to a view of green leaves and tree branches. Renata’s cat, Miss Cordelia Tabby Shoes Proper, sleeps curled up in a ball of sunlight on the edge of the couch.
Antique dolls and religious statuary decorate the space. Although she’s been living there for months, Renata has been told that her current housing situation is only temporary. As a result, she’s hesitant to completely settle in, so her bedroom wall is stacked with packed moving boxes.
Renata is a student who generally keeps to herself. She loves living in Lambertville, and wants to stay. The problem is that her active lease, which has approximately eight months left on it, is tied to her former unit.
Getting her lease transferred to her current unit hasn’t worked out. Renata keeps trying, however, because her previous apartment shows no signs of being repaired, and she’s not sure if or when she’ll be asked to move back there.
At one point, someone reviewed her request and sent a new lease, but the apartment number on the document was still for her old unit. She’s taken to emailing the management company every day (except weekends and holidays). Her communications are polite and professional, but it hasn’t made a difference.
In an attempt to get help, Renata has gone to the Lambertville City Council, the news, the health department, and to the police. Everyone she talks to points her to another agency and/or suggests that she try a different approach.
In the meantime, she’s developed a strange cough that she can’t quite shake.
Renata is prone to depression, but she said this whole situation has only strengthened her faith, so she keeps trying, and she’s helping others too. She wanted Linda to share her story, because Renata felt Linda was really suffering.
Linda’s Old Apartment
Linda was in bed when the sprinkler sprayed water and foam on her, her dog, and her belongings. Her $600 computer was ruined, her furniture had to be broken up and trashed, and she had to throw away her deceased father’s ashes.
It’s been seven months since the incident. Rust-colored stains mark the old unit, and mold grows freely on the ceiling, walls, and carpet.
Linda got moved from upstairs to a temporary apartment on the ground floor. Currently she pays rent only for one apartment, but her lease is still tied to the moldy living space upstairs.
Given the situation, Linda has taken extra care to pay her rent on time. However, she said CIS Management told her they haven’t been getting her monthly rent.
Concerned, Linda stopped payment on the missing checks (paying a $33 bank fee for each). After that, CIS Management returned her canceled checks to her, all of which were postdated in the envelopes in which they had received them.
“They told me they had to sort through 3,000 checks to find my cancelled checks,” Linda said, “so they did get them.”
Linda’s Temporary Apartment
Nearly everything Linda has in her current space—a vacuum, a TV, some furniture, and a large mattress—was donated.
She didn’t have air conditioning until just recently, and the hot water doesn't get hot until 10pm. She said a man sometimes stands outside of her window at night while she is trying to relax in bed and watch television. Also, there are a lot of spiders in her temporary space, and she’s woken up with trails of itchy bites.
Linda’s current unit is one of the apartments that had the drywall cut away by the floor in the hallway. The backs of her kitchen cabinets are exposed to the corridor. No insulation is visible, and you can see the light from in her kitchen.
“Something has been scurrying through that opening,” Linda pointed out.
On the floor, under the cabinet, appears to be mouse poop. Linda has asked CIS Management to put boards up to block the pests from coming into her kitchen, but so far the landlord hasn’t responded.
Linda suffers from ADHD, and can’t lift her left arm higher than shoulder height. She needs a shower head on a handle like she had in her previous unit. Although she has requested one, management hasn’t provided it.
After finding out that she has a spot on her lung, she cut her smoking habit down to two cigarettes per day. She missed a CT scan appointment recently, because she’s having trouble managing everything alone.
The Department of Housing system uses a bureaucratic maze of paperwork, websites, emails, and forms—all of which Linda navigates using only her smartphone. Watching her finger the tiny screen on her Android device made it clear that securing housing is no easy task for an inexperienced tech user.
She’s even tried to get legal help, but can’t find a lawyer that will take her case.
“I’ve been dealing with this for seven months,” she said, breaking into tears for a moment, “I’m exhausted.”
Linda is diabetic, and is increasingly having trouble getting medicine. She would like to move back to Flemington, because she relies on the bus to get around, but she’s having a hard time finding a rental that’s within her budget.
Meanwhile, her lease at Heritage Village is coming to an end. She’s gotten a couple 30-day extensions, one of which she credits to the help of Mayor Nowick.
Now, with her deadline looming, Linda is beginning to panic.
“I don’t want to end up homeless,” she cried.
Renata encouraged her not to give up.
“You have to have faith and hope. Pray every day,” Renata advised.
“If this is happening to us, it’s happening to other people too.”
Behind the ‘Seens’
In the back parking lot at Heritage Village, an open hole spans two parking spaces. Behind it, a sign reads, “Fire Sprinkler Tank 40,000 Gallons.”
Residents say a pipe broke—they think—but they’re not really sure about what happened. They say the hole was dug after the sprinkler system went off.
Heritage Village Apartments in Lambertville is managed by CIS Management.
CIS Management is part of Community Investment Strategies, which owns thirty apartment buildings in New Jersey. According to their website, CIS Management “provides comprehensive and responsive property management services,” and, “is committed to a hands-on, around-the-clock approach.”
The Founder and CEO of Community Investment Strategies is Christina Foglio.
Foglio’s career path has revolved in and out of the public and private sectors. She was executive director of the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, chaired the New Jersey Council on Affordable Housing, and was president of the New Brunswick Development Corporation—all while she amassed a portfolio that includes 3,775 apartments valued at over $600 million.
Foglio is married to Douglas Palmer, who is the former mayor of Trenton, NJ.
In 2023, NJ 101.5 news reported that Foglio and Palmer listed their house in Stockton, NJ for $2.2 million. According to Zillow, the listing was removed. In 2021, The Trentonian reported that Foglio purchased the property “through her development company, Community Investment Strategy, for $1.44 million.”
In 2024, Foglio was named commissioner with the Middlesex County Improvement Authority, which is her second appointment to the MICA.
No Ill Will
Renata adheres to Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence, and therefore wishes no ill will on anyone. She simply wants safe and secure housing for herself, and for her neighbors. Unfortunately, that means complaining to the landlord about the landlord, and appealing to institutions that have a lot of power over their lives.
“People say ‘you have a choice,’” Renata explained, “but that’s not always the case. Sometimes people don’t have a choice.”
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