A woman whose family became homeless after an apartment fire in Farmington Hills one day before Easter last year has filed a lawsuit against her landlord and property managers, alleging long-standing safety failures and retaliation.
Theresa Stott, who lived at Botsford Place Terrace Apartments with her two daughters, filed the lawsuit in Oakland County Circuit Court earlier this month and is representing herself. The complaint names Brookfield Management Company, Botsford Place Terrace Apartments LLC, and several individuals connected to ownership and management, including TikTok and Instagram star Justin Becker and Stephanie Trivax.
The fire broke out at about 10 p.m. on April 19 inside the apartment complex near Independence and Oxford roads. Farmington Hills firefighters spent several hours battling the blaze, which damaged eight units and led to a partial floor collapse. The city said at the time that smoke detectors were working and that all residents escaped safely.
Stott disputes that account.
“I had just put away groceries and shut off the bathroom light when I started hearing what sounded like running water,” Stott tells Metro Times. “When I went back into the bathroom, smoke was pouring out of the ceiling vent. What I was hearing wasn’t water. It was wiring crackling.”
Stott says she called 911 immediately and began knocking on neighbors’ doors to warn them. She says smoke alarms did not go off and provided video that backs up her account.
“No smoke alarms in the building were sounding whatsoever,” she says. “My video from a few minutes after the fire started shows that. Easter was the next day. You’d think we would have heard something.”
Stott says she and her daughters escaped, but they had nowhere to go.
“I lost everything, me and my daughters,” she says. “All of the memories are gone.”
Farmington Hills Fire Marshal Jason Baloga insists the smoke alarms were working.
“We heard them while we were there,” Baloga tells Metro Times.
The cause of the fire remains undetermined, but it appears to have started in a “concealed space between the first and second floor in the wall and ceiling,” Baloga says.
According to the lawsuit, Stott and her children lived at the complex from February 2020 until the fire in April 2025. The complaint lays out a years-long pattern of alleged problems, including ignored maintenance requests, unsafe electrical conditions, heat outages, and management’s failure to protect her family from a neighbor she says threatened them, prompting her to obtain a personal protection order.
The lawsuit alleges that management failed to enforce the PPO, denied requests to transfer her family to a different unit, and retaliated against her after repeated complaints.
Stott also claims the fire was not an isolated incident. She says tenants were aware of a previous fire in another building at the complex, but when she attempted to obtain fire records, she was told no such incident existed.
“We knew for a fact that fire happened,” she says.
Records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the city had numerous issues with the building since at least 2016. Inspectors spotted “structural issues” with the roof and ceiling, incomplete repair and an expired permit for the water heater, “serious safety concerns” that were not corrected with the boiler, poor property management, repeated issues with neglected vehicles, and “ongoing property neglect.”
None of the defendants, including the owners and management group, returned Metro Times’s messages for comment.
The fire destroyed most of Stott’s posessions, but Baloga says firefighters tried to salvage what they could.
“We spent a lot of time getting personal belongings,” Baloga says. “We knew the building was pretty dangerous, so we tried to grab as much as we could that was salvageable for her because she didn’t have insurance.”
In the days and weeks after the April fire, Stott says she bounced between hotels and the homes and friends and relatives. She says the displacement contributed to her losing her job and left her struggling to secure stable housing.
“They offered other people two-bedroom units and didn’t offer us anything,” she says. “Then when they finally offered us something, they gave it to someone else. We’re homeless. It feels like retaliation.”
The lawsuit includes claims of negligence, breach of lease, housing code violations, retaliation, constructive eviction, conversion of personal property, emotional distress, and violations of state and federal fair housing laws. It seeks damages for lost housing, destroyed property, emotional harm, and financial losses tied to displacement and unemployment.
Stott, who says she has health restrictions and had surgery last week, is pursuing the case without an attorney.
“I’m doing this pro se, and I feel like I’m being bullied in court,” she says. “But the evidence is there. I reported everything to the proper authorities. I did nothing wrong.”
Stott says she understands her claims conflict with official accounts but insists the facts will come out.
“I can’t just let this go,” she says. “I lost my whole life in that fire. I worked really hard, and now I have nothing.”
Stott launched a GoFundMe campaign to help her and her daughters.
Baloga says the fire is “a great opportunity to remind people to test their smoke alarms monthly and make sure there are batteries in those and that they are working properly.”
“That’s the best way to prevent injuries,” he says.
The city will help install smoke alarms if residents call 248-871-2800 or email fdevents@fhgov.com.
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Steve Neavling
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