This Spanaway family has a home. So why have they been living for months in a hotel? [The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)]

Feb. 28—A Spanaway family of five left their spacious two-story house with their young German shepherd in tow, relocating to an extended stay hotel far from home.

The move into three cramped hotel rooms in Federal Way, roughly 25 miles from where they've resided since 2016, was supposed to be short-lived — no more than a month or two, according to Renee Niles. Now the family — along with their rambunctious 1-year-old dog, Simba — has been at Staybridge Suites for five months. Initial feelings of anxiety have boiled over into frustration.

"For me, it's still a big question as to why we're (still) here," Niles said on a recent weekday from inside a hotel room she shares with her husband.

The reason they were there at all was clear enough: The Niles' family home sustained water damage in August due to leaking pipes upstairs, leading to mold and sewage inside the house, according to their attorney. The resolution has proven to be a less-than-straightforward matter.

The family, which includes three sons between the ages of 14 and 20, has been locked in a dispute with their insurance company over remediation and repairs. In January, the wrangling elevated to legal action when Renee Niles, 49, and her husband, Alphonso Niles, 50, sued The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Co. in Pierce County Superior Court.

In their legal complaint, the couple claimed that Connecticut-based Travelers failed to fully extend insurance coverage for the loss, investigate their claim for coverage or provide coverage for needed fixes to the home. The suit, which alleged breach of contract and negligence, is seeking unspecified damages and legal fees.

"They got insurance, they had a loss, it was covered and, for whatever reason, it's not being processed," said attorney Leah Snyder, who's representing the Niles family in the lawsuit, which has since been moved to federal court.

Travelers denied wrongdoing in a submitted answer to the complaint, court records show, contending that the family "bear some or all of the fault for their claimed harm and damages" and "failed to use all reasonable means to save and preserve property at and after the time of the claimed loss."

Travelers declined to address the family's allegations for this story.

"Due to the ongoing litigation, we're unable to provide a comment," Travelers spokesperson Sperry Mylott said in an email.

According to Snyder, there was a disagreement between a hired remediation company and Travelers over the scope of work necessary to take care of the damages in the Niles' home, leaving the cleanup incomplete. The insurance payout fell significantly short of covering the needed work, she said, and Travelers allegedly rejected additional labor.

The Niles family had obtained a quote from one general contractor who estimated the home would cost $130,000 and take six to eight weeks to fix, according to a mid-September text exchange between Renee Niles and a Travelers representative. The exchange, which was part of several communications provided by Snyder to The News Tribune, showed that the estimate was more expensive than Travelers had been anticipating.

Travelers directed the family to open a second claim, even though only one originating incident had given rise to existing problems, Snyder said, including mold in an upstairs guest bathroom, rotted flooring, cracks in a dining room wall downstairs and a thin, protruding line stretching across the living room ceiling. The family had been reluctant to file a new claim because it would require another investigation and separate deductible, she said, but they did so after retaining legal counsel.

Illustrating the dangers lurking inside the home, Snyder wore a hazmat suit and Renee Niles donned a face mask during a tour of the place in early February, on the same day that an insurer conducted a site visit.

"To me, when you pay into something — you know, you pay into insurance — the point of it is to get things fixed when something goes wrong," Alphonso Niles said in an interview at the hotel. "It shouldn't be this much of a hassle."

Difficult acclimation

The family says they're stuck in a standstill as they wait for damages to be repaired so they can finally leave the hotel and safely return to a home they departed in September. It's been a tough adjustment.

Privacy is nearly impossible, as is whipping up a decent home-cooked meal. Hotel-offered laundry service is expensive over time. Alphonso Niles said he misses grilling and playing basketball with his sons, who currently reside in two hotel rooms nearby and can't have friends over. The family's eldest child, 20-year-old Sahgi Niles, noted how he wished he had his computer monitor or could again walk his favorite trails.

"You don't know what you miss until you don't have it," Renee Niles said.

Travelers works with an independent vendor to find affected families short-term housing that's roughly similar in size and location as their damaged homes, but housing isn't always easy to come by, according to Snyder. There aren't many short-term leases available, and most people don't have the liquid assets to pay for replacement housing — although insurance companies are required to issue reimbursements — on top of their mortgage.

Text messages provided by Snyder to The News Tribune indicated that the Niles family might have been able to stay in a short-term home instead of a hotel as they await remediation and repairs. In several communications from September to November between Renee Niles and representatives or partners with CRS, the company tasked with finding housing for Travelers' policyholders, Renee Niles was asked to consider temporary home options.

In some instances, she did not return a message. In others, she responded only with inquiries about the timeline for getting her own home addressed. A CRS representative assigned to the family's claim noted in September that available homes moved quickly and that Travelers required policyholders to view properties as soon as they were approved for a move-in.

Renee and Alphonso Niles said they had reviewed available homes not long after the water leak: One location didn't feel safe and another didn't accept pets. After some early discussions with the vendor about finding a temporary home, the topic of conversation shifted to ensuring the family would be granted extensions from their insurance company to remain at the hotel, Alphonso Niles said.

It's not uncommon for affected families to be put up in a hotel by their insurance companies if issues arise with finding replacement housing, according to Snyder, who said she was aware of other families at Staybridge Suites in a similar predicament.

Not alone

In May, Edward Ash's home in Kent was flooded. Ash, 69, who has been residing at the hotel with his wife since October, told The News Tribune that their prolonged stay was the result of issues with getting repairs done through their carrier, Farmers Insurance.

"I think it's just about money," Ash said, noting that his insurer had denied contractor bids for needed work.

Rosa Reyes, her husband and their three children spent roughly two months at Staybridge Suites after their Federal Way home of seven years flooded in late November. Near the end of January, Farmers Insurance told the family they were no longer covered to remain at the hotel, according to Reyes. She claimed that the insurer was also not willing to pay for everything that a contractor estimated would be required to fully address the home's issues.

For a few days, Reyes and her husband slept in a car outside the family's property while their children, aged 11 to 16, stayed with friends. With nowhere else to go, the family returned inside the unfinished home.

Reyes, 43, became emotional as she described its current condition: There's missing insulation and floors in the adjacent kitchen and laundry rooms where water damage had been discovered. There's no stove or kitchen sink. The heater must run nonstop to keep the house warm. The family has been constantly sick and have exhausted their savings paying for food, she said.

"For us to be sleeping in a car, this is not OK," Reyes said.

Both Reyes and Ash said Farmers Insurance never offered them options to stay in short-term homes.

"We continue to work with our customers to resolve their claims," Farmers spokesperson Luis Sahagun said in a statement.

For the Niles, the place where they no longer want to be is also what's potentially keeping them from the dire circumstance of having nowhere else to go. Often, the family says, they only learn whether they've been granted an extension to remain at the hotel just as their current stay is set to expire.

"It hasn't been easy as a mom just to tell (the children), 'Hey, keep your clothes kind of packed in your bag,' or 'Let's keep a box here just in case,' and living like week to week in a sense," Renee Niles said.

Most recently, the family was granted an extension to stay at the hotel for two additional weeks, handing over an old set of hotel key cards for new ones — a ritual that they've grown accustomed to.

"It's nice that we have really, kind of, precocious neighbors, so they've kind of kept an eye on our house the whole time we've been gone," Renee Niles said. "But still, (the neighbors are) worried, like, 'What's going on?'

"And it's like, 'We wish we knew.'"

This story was originally published February 28, 2024, 5:30 AM.

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