Texas Woman's Apartment Covered In Blood After Body Decomposes in Upstairs Unit
"My apartment is covered in blood," a Texas woman said she told police on the phone Tuesday after she woke up to find blood dripping through the ceiling above her.
Ana Cardenas, who lived alone in her El Paso apartment, became covered in the blood of her deceased upstairs neighbor when fluid leaked through her ceiling and onto her running ceiling fan, causing blood to spray across her apartment, and even her face and hair, she told local CBS News on Friday.
"It grossed me out, I was in shock," Cardenas said. "I thought this isn't real this is a dream, wake up." After she did manage to call the police, officers arrived to check the apartment directly above hers and found the remains of her former neighbor. She said officers later determined he had died of natural causes and had been decomposing undisturbed on the upstairs floor for five or six days.
"The firefighters knocked down his door and the body was laying exactly where my fan is underneath," Cardenas said. "He had carpet but the blood seeped through to my ceiling."
Cardenas reiterated that she was feeling "in shock" and planned to see a doctor to make sure she didn't have any medical problems resulting from exposure to the blood and other bodily fluids.
Dealing with the apartment building officials has not gone completely smoothly for Cardenas.
"I called maintenance and they said, 'Are you sure?' And I said blood is falling on me," Cardenas told local news, explaining that when maintenance did come, "they took my fan down and a pool of blood came pouring down."
She had been living in the apartment for approximately two years and did not have renter's insurance. She is now fighting a battle with the apartment complex's management company to receive compensation for her damaged property. She is also out of a place to live, as she told local news she does not intend to renew her lease.
"I made several attempts to contact the managers of the Cielo Vista apartment complex with no response or return of my phone calls. I have no other means of shelter and now all my belongings have been contaminated," Cardenas wrote on a GoFundMe page she set up earlier this week.
"Bodily fluids began leaking from the ceiling contaminating all my personal belongings: bed, furniture, clothes, sheets, and much more are now destroyed and had to be thrown away due to biohazard...This requested go fund me assistance will help with temporary shelter, replacement of my clothing and much needed personal belongings."
