UT students Brooke Lyons and Hollie Sanchez say their student apartment at University Estates at Austin is the stuff of nightmares.
"We have roaches in the freezer in the fridge, in our food, everywhere," said Sanchez. "There's still like roach feces in our microwave that we clean out every day."
On Monday, Lyons posted a Tweet showing the infestation inside their Southeast Austin apartment, which they said was present from the moment they moved in and continues to be a problem.
That post has started to go viral.
The students said they posted these photos over a week since they first moved in and after multiple attempts to speak with the property manager.
One night, Lyons said she woke up to roaches crawling on her face. "There were several on me and they were like of different sizes," she said.
Both girls said they were welcomed by a filthy apartment filled with dead and living roaches. Lyons immediately filled out and turned in a damage report. Management said they would send pest control on August 21, but the students said no one showed up. After reaching out to the property manager again, pest control came on August 23, but their work did little to exterminate the problem.
Lyons and Sanchez said the property manager told them there were no other rooms available on the property to rent out and the next extermination would not be until September 4. He credited them a $100 discount on their rent, which they said would not nearly be enough to rent out a new apartment or stay in a hotel.
During all this time, they say the infestation affected their health. "I was trying to just express how bad it was that we're not sleeping, that they were crawling on me, that there are bites on my legs," said Lyons. "[Hollie] has a really bad allergy. She has paperwork for it."