Auburn’s finance department got its first inkling that something was not right at the Auburn Pines apartments when it learned that the buildings’ owner, had not paid its water bill for six months.

That delinquency alone had an alarmingly familiar ring to Mayor Pete Lewis, who had encountered the same problem at other rundown apartments.

Digging a little deeper, the City learned that the owner, HMS Land, LLC of Everrett and Seattle, did not have a current business license for the complex at 505 and 515 North Division St., two blocks west of Scarff Ford. City officials tried without success to reach the owners.

At that point, Lewis brought together a team of code enforcement officers, fire, police and finance officials and decided this week to pay the two multi-family residential apartment buildings a visit.

What team members found – water in the light fixtures and electrical sockets, ceilings and walls one could push a finger through, mold coming out of the baseboard heater so thickly that it covered the wires, among other things – convinced them that the buildings were unfit for human habitation.

What they found infuriated everybody.

“It’s OK to be poor, I’ve been poor, but you don’t have to live in bad living conditions that are unhealthy and unsafe, and it really does a lot more than just irritate me,” Lewis said.

Operating a rental housing business without a business license is a misdemeanor in Washington, punishable by 90 days in jail or a $1,000 fine. City prosecutors immediately went to court and filed a criminal complaint. The complaint names HMS Land, LLC and its owners, agents, partners or corporate officers Benjamin Hill, Reginald Hill and Dona E. Simmons.

The buildings’ owners refused to comment on the situation.

The City notified tenants Tuesday that it had red-tagged the building, that is, posted an order forbidding the owner from allowing anybody to live there, and directing that all tenants be out by Aug. 7.

Members of the mayor’s community service group also put out a call to the landlords of all the apartments in Auburn and other areas. As of Tuesday the City had found 30 places available, with calls still coming in.

The City also gave the owners a list of what must be fixed for people to live there again.

“What bothered us is there’s 30 units,” Lewis said. “Many of them are minorities of one kind or another who don’t speak English, mostly Latino, and we were concerned about taking action because they can’t live there. It’s that bad.”

City officials also contacted the Auburn-based Dream Center to coordinate the collection of furniture from all the church groups in the area, because much of what’s coming out of the apartments is covered in mold spores and won’t be allowed anywhere else.

Dream Center, a church-related, non-denominational organization, acts as an clectronic switch board, for example putting out the call to churches for blankets, vouchers, food, or just to get information in and get it out to people in need.

The community services group gave each tenant a notice in English and Spanish telling what they had to do, and gave them also referrals to other agencies that could help them, emphasizing that the landlord is going to have to pay each of them up to $2,000 for relocation.

“We did have the owner and his management company come in today for a rather brief discussion,” Lewis said Wednesday. “We will be giving them a list of what they would have to have back in order to have people back in that place.”