They came up to the podium a little reluctantly last Wednesday evening in the cafeteria of Corpus Christi School in Falls Church, smiled faintly to friends, neighbors and family then began telling their stories in Spanish, stopping periodically for their words to be translated into English.

The tenants’ testimonies told of bedbug infestations so bad that their children would be covered in bites. Doors would not lock on apartments and electrical fixtures dangled loosely from ceilings.

“If I go to make a complaint,” said resident Ramón Moreno, “they write it down. They say they’ll come back, but they don’t.”

Tenants of the Culmore area apartment complex said they pay up to $1,400 a month for apartments with inoperative toilets, peeling paint and holes in the ceilings large enough to see your upstairs neighbors.

Last week’s meeting was sponsored by St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Falls Church and Virginians Organized for Interfaith Community Engagement (V.O.I.C.E.). After years of silence, tenants are coming forward to complain, their fear pushed aside by their refusal to put the health of their families in jeopardy.

Oscar Ramiro Funez, a V.O.I.C.E. volunteer, surveyed 34 apartments and found the most common complaints to be: malfunctioning or no fire alarms; broken doors and locks; peeling paint; holes in ceilings; broken cabinets; non-functioning toilets and pest infestations. Funez said that instead of replacing broken windows, “they would use plywood and duct tape to fix them.”

“Would you pay $1,200 a month for this?” he asked.

The pastor of the Accotink Unitarian Church in Burke, Rev. Scott Sammler-Michael, a licensed electrical contractor, toured several of the apartment buildings in the complex with residents. He wanted to see and record any electrical code violations. Emergency lights were not working, there were no Ground Fault Interrupters on circuits to protect against electrical shock and outlets were packed with paint. There was a leak in one of the basements from a pipe that looked as if a faucet was left on and water covered the floor.

Sammler-Michael worked as an electrician in some of the worst tenements in Baltimore, but said this was different.

“These were the worst (conditions) in a building I have ever seen,” he said.

“Who owns these buildings,” Father Tuck Grinnell, pastor of St. Anthony Church, asked the audience shaking a fist in the air. “It’s not the county, it’s not St. Anthony’s. We’re going to talk to the owners of these buildings.”

Father Grinnell told the story of young girl who lived in Vista Gardens and who came up to him and said, “I can’t sleep at night because of bedbugs.” The bugs had bitten her from head to toe.

But there was hope amidst all the tales of roaches, peeling paint and electrical hazards.

Father Grinnell asked the audience, “Why will tonight be different?”

He pointed to Fairfax County Mason District Supervisor Penelope Gross seated in the front row.

“It will be different because you are here tonight, Penny Gross.”

Gross has worked with V.O.I.C.E. and St. Anthony to help fix the problem. She brought two Fairfax County fire marshals to the meeting. The marshals said they were going to begin inspections last Friday. They also said that they needed the cooperation of tenants.

Father Grinnell asked Gross if she would help fix these problems.

“Yes,” she answered.

Gross said Fairfax County is working to unravel the ownership situation with Vista Gardens. She said that there are multiple owners and they are working to make the connection among owners and must move carefully.

“We are working on getting registered letters out to those listed on the deed to lead us to the principals,” wrote Kathleen O’Toole a V.O.I.C.E. official, in an e-mail. No owner contact information was provided by V.O.I.C.E. for this article.

Gross said the median income in Fairfax County is $91,000 a year, but all residents deserve decent housing — rich and poor alike.

Gross was asked if she would accompany residents and activists on a tour of the building on Mother’s Day, May 10, to see what’s been accomplished.

“Tell me when,” she replied to the applause of the packed cafeteria. “But after church of course.”