Angelina Appling v. Jennifer L. Sorensen

Let’s cut straight to the drama: a mom in Tulsa County is suing her landlord for $10,000 because her kid kept getting sick from toxic mold growing inside the walls—and the landlord allegedly did nothing about it, even after being told, multiple times, that a child was literally falling ill. Not a leaky faucet. Not a creaky floorboard. We’re talking about invisible, spore-spewing, health-endangering mold festering behind drywall, like something out of a horror movie, except this one stars a toddler with a persistent cough and a mom who just wanted a safe place to raise her family. And now? She’s out thousands in relocation costs, her security deposit, and possibly her peace of mind—all while the people who were supposed to fix it allegedly ghosted her like a bad Tinder date.

So who are these people? On one side, we’ve got Angelina Appling—tenant, mother, and now plaintiff—who’s lived at 1705 N. Cypress Ave. in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, since 2020. She wasn’t some fly-by-night renter; she’d been there four years before this whole mold saga kicked off. She even signed a new lease in April 2024, which means she wasn’t trying to bail—she was trying to stay. On the other side? We’ve got Jennifer L. Sorensen, the actual property owner, and her hired help, 918 Property Manager LLC (doing business as “The Property Manager”), the company presumably paid to handle things like “Hey, there’s mold in my kid’s bedroom wall.” Instead of fixing it, though, they allegedly treated the situation like background noise—annoying, but not urgent.

Now, let’s walk through the timeline, because it’s equal parts infuriating and tragically relatable. On April 8, 2024—just a week after the new lease kicked in—Angelina does the responsible thing: she contacts the property manager and says, “Hey, there’s mold in the wall between my child’s bedroom and the bathroom.” That’s not a “maybe check it out someday” situation. That’s a “my kid sleeps three feet from a fungal biohazard” situation. But according to the filing, the property manager? Crickets. No repair. No inspection. No “we’ll send someone next week.” So Angelina escalates—she calls the owner, Jennifer Sorensen, directly. Again, she’s not yelling, she’s not threatening, she’s just saying: “This is dangerous. My child is getting sick. Please fix it.” And again? Silence. No action. The mold stays. The kid keeps getting sick. The home becomes, in legal terms, uninhabitable—which is a fancy way of saying “not fit for human living,” especially for a child with a developing immune system.

By September 1, 2024—five months after the first complaint—Angelina has had enough. She packs up her family and moves out. Not because she wanted to. Not because she broke the lease. But because the place was making her child sick and no one in charge would lift a finger to fix it. And if you think that’s the end, it gets worse: the landlords then refuse to return her security deposit. That’s right—after failing to maintain a habitable home, after ignoring repeated pleas about mold, they’re now holding onto her money like she’s the one who violated the agreement. It’s like being fined for fleeing a burning building.

So why are we in court? Legally speaking, Angelina’s suing on two fronts: negligence and breach of contract. Let’s break that down without the legalese. Negligence, in this case, means the landlords had a duty to keep the place safe—and they blew it. In Oklahoma, landlords are required to maintain rental properties in a habitable condition. That includes basic things like working plumbing, no structural hazards, and—yes—no toxic mold growing in the walls of a child’s bedroom. By allegedly ignoring the problem for five months, they may have violated that duty, and if it caused harm (like a sick kid and a family forced to move), that’s negligence with real consequences.

The second claim—breach of contract—is even more straightforward. A lease is a contract. And part of that contract, whether written or implied, is that the landlord provides a livable space. When they don’t? That’s a breach. Angelina’s saying, “I held up my end—I paid rent, I followed the rules. You didn’t. You broke the deal.” And now she wants to be made whole.

Which brings us to the money: she’s asking for over $10,000. Is that a lot? For a mold issue? Let’s be real—$10,000 might sound dramatic if we’re talking about a stained carpet or a broken window. But here? It’s probably conservative. Think about it: emergency relocation costs, new deposits on a new place, moving trucks, storage, possibly medical bills or co-pays for doctor visits, lost time from work dealing with the crisis, and the value of her security deposit—plus the sheer emotional toll of watching your kid get sick in a home you’re paying good money to live in. And let’s not forget: she’s also seeking attorney’s fees, which the lease apparently allows. So this isn’t just about punishment—it’s about covering the real, tangible costs of being failed by the people who were supposed to protect her family.

Now, here’s our take: the most absurd part of this whole mess isn’t even the mold. It’s the lack of urgency. A child is sick. A parent is begging for help. And the response? Radio silence. That’s not just bad property management—that’s a failure of basic human decency. And while we’re not saying every landlord needs to show up with a hazmat suit at the first whiff of mildew, there’s a baseline expectation that if you’re collecting rent, you’re also responsible for not letting your tenants live in a health hazard. The fact that Angelina had to move out—had to—because the landlords wouldn’t act, and then got punished financially on top of it? That’s the kind of Kafkaesque landlord nonsense that makes renters want to burn the whole system down and live in a van by the river.

We’re rooting for Angelina not because she’s flawless, but because she did everything right. She notified. She escalated. She gave them time. She didn’t break the lease first—she left after the home became unsafe. And now she’s standing up not just for her own family, but for every renter who’s ever been ignored, gaslit, or strong-armed by a property manager who treats homes like ATMs. If she wins? It won’t bring back those months of stress or her kid’s health, but it might send a message: You can’t just ignore mold and hope it goes away. Especially when a child is coughing in the next room.

And hey, maybe—just maybe—this case will inspire a few property managers across Oklahoma to actually read their maintenance requests instead of filing them under “meh.” Until then, we’ll be over here, side-eyeing any landlord who thinks “inhabitable” is just a suggestion.