Alyssa Pointer for Business Insider
In April 2022, a young aspiring permanent makeup artist named Henisha Dunn rented a basement unit in Atlanta's Venetian Hills neighborhood from an old middle-school acquaintance who lived on the home's first floor. The damp, poorly lit unit wasn't ideal for Dunn and her fiancé, but the couple had a baby on the way and the rent was much cheaper than anything they could find in the city.
Problems quickly emerged.
"We noticed leaking four days after we moved in," Dunn said. After making some inadequate repairs, she said, their landlord, a woman named Zion Griffin, refused to do any more work and instead tried to get them to leave.