Although the worst house in Madison has already been formally recognized, some University of Wisconsin students say their apartment may actually be worse.

UW students Jason Lee and Jon Erickson live at 121 Langdon Street in apartment LL. Erickson said they have had problems with the apartment since last fall, beginning in October.

“We had fleas in our apartment and the exterminator came four times before they went away,” Erickson said.

According to Erickson, after each time the exterminator came they had to vacuum the carpet, wash all of their clothes and clean the apartment. He said his landlord, Harold Langhammer, said he would compensate for all the time lost on cleaning but never did. Erickson said Langhammer was somewhat helpful, calling the exterminator and paying for it, but it seemed as though he was taking the cheapest route possible.

Lee added that the process of getting rid of the fleas was a tedious process.

“Our landlord ignored us and then, only after we hassled him about it, decided to send in an ‘exterminator’,” Lee said. “Which pretty much consisted of a glorified old man with a can of Raid.”

According to Lee the fleas were so bad, two of the tenants had to move out until the fleas disappeared. He said he did some research and found that legally, Langhammer should have moved them out of the apartment until the fleas were gone.

Erickson said the second disaster occurred after Spring Break. When they returned home their apartment was flooded with sewage. He said they called their landlord and told him the apartment was flooded, but Langhammer just vacuumed the water and cleaned up the sewage. Erickson also said he didn’t sanitize anything. The apartment flooded three more times Erickson said, causing them to move into the Edgewater hotel for a week because Langhammer never offered them anywhere else to stay.

Lee agreed that the landlord did not offer much help.

“My roommates and I found the cheapest hotel deal we could find and moved into the Edgewater that Sunday night because our landlord refused to let us move,” Lee said, adding that eventually parents became involved and Langhammer was forced to pay the hotel bill. Lee said Central Properties ended up digging up Langdon Street and the front lawn in order to fix the sewage problem.

Erickson said last week when it rained, their bathroom started to leak and they called Wednesday night to get it fixed, but were told nothing would be done until Thursday. He also said he found out the bathroom was leaking because the drainage system was broken when the sewage was fixed.

According to Erickson no lawyers have been involved yet, just parents. He said his father and his roommate’s stepfather have been trying to contact Langhammer, but he has been dodging their calls.

“My dad wrote a letter saying we needed to be compensated,” Erickson said.

Erickson said they wanted to get someone Langhammer would listen to because he has been blowing the students off from the beginning. The tenants have not paid rent for April and May because they feel they should be compensated for time and expenses.