Luxury rental home turned nightmare sends woman to hospital

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCIV) — When Kerri Rosson and her family moved from Chicago to Charleston in August of 2020, they were excited to explore what the Palmetto State has to offer.

“We moved here, and we were like, ‘Fresh start.' It’ll be nice because we moved to a new state. It’ll be different I’ve heard so many good things,” Kerri’s daughter, Isabel, said.

The Rossons were moving to what was advertised as a “luxury home” rental from a company called Charleston Home Rentals.

But when they got to the house, it was anything but “luxury.”

“It was like almost if a high schooler put it together, like this is what my perfect house would be. And they designed it in a shop class or something,” Isabel said.

The Rossons detailed 103 problems with the house including mold in the air ducts, dangerously high MVOC levels (which allows mold to grow), one of the bathrooms leaking into the garage and no working A/C or heat. Plus, they didn’t even receive a key to the front door for three months.

“I don’t even know what to do anymore,” Kerri said. “The house is literally killing us."

Parts of the property, including the deck in the backyard, were condemned.

Kerri claims they have contacted the rental company over 300 times since their move almost a year ago and have received little to no help in response.

“The owner about a week and a half ago said all the A/C had to be shut off,” Rosson said.

The air conditioning in the house was barely working but the rental company ordered them to shut it off to allow its repair.

Last Friday temperatures in Charleston reached 90 degrees.

With no A/C, the heat took a tool on Isabella.

“I was siting in a house where it was almost 95 degrees all day,” Isabella said. “I’m sitting down and the room starts to spin and this isn’t right.”

The next day Isabella suffered a minor stroke and a grand mal migraine. Her symptoms sent her to the hospital.

The doctor said this wouldn’t have happened if she was living in an air-conditioned environment.

“I’m sitting in the hospital and I can’t write my own name, I can’t finish my own birthday and can’t remember my zip code anymore. Nothing is making sense anymore,” Isabella said.

Luckily, she was able to walk out of the hospital shortly after, but still can’t listen to loud music, look at electronic displays for too long and can’t stay in the house out of fear of a relapse.

Kerri, a heart attack survivor, says seeing her daughter go through this is too much for her to handle.

“As a mom when I got to the hospital and saw her sedated, with all the IV bags in, going into CT Scans, I realized they broke her, forever," Kerri said.

“Words cannot describe that pain, that anguish, that feel. It’s not ok,” Isabella’s brother Austin Zaija said. “It hurt a lot to hear her crying on the phone.”

ABC reached out to the rental company for response and when we got a hold of one of the company’s owners, he said, “I’m not having this conversation right now.” He did not answer any of our other attempts to contact him.

But for now, Isabella is left picking up the pieces.

“I used to be able to do stuff right away, get it done, multitask and now I have hard times just getting my papers together,” Isabella said. “I have to stop for like 15 minutes because I can’t look at my screen for too long without being in crippling pain.”

The family’s lease ends at the end of August but they currently do not have a place set up to live.

Stuck between living in the house that has caused them so much pain or possibly having their lease run out with no place to live, the family says they are ready for this situation to be over.

“At this point I just want to get into a house and walk away from all this,” Zaija said.