Her KC apartment ceiling collapsed. Management made some fixes, gave her $233
When Donielle Manley’s 7-year-old son alerted her that he had heard a cracking sound in the living room of their Kansas City apartment, she had questions. What was going on? Was it something on TV?
She came out of her bedroom, and sure enough, she heard the sound as well. She knew something was wrong immediately and hustled her son off to her bedroom.
She began recording a video, which shows a large swath of ceiling sagging, then collapsing as she stands nearby. The collapse left her living room blanketed in drywall pieces and insulation bits and damaged some of her possessions.
In the video, her son can be heard whimpering in the background, terrified of what happened in the space he had occupied just moments earlier.
“I didn’t recognize my apartment, walking out of my bedroom,” she told The Star. “It was like a movie.”
The complex where she lives, Clear View Apartments, off Blue Ridge Boulevard, is managed by Prism Real Estate Services, an Overland Park-based company that oversees a group of residential and commercial properties throughout the metro.
Frustrated with the response of her complex’s management, which she considered insufficient, she posted the video of the ceiling collapse on Facebook a couple of weeks later, warning others to avoid renting there, as she has since 2018.
The company, which called the collapse an isolated incident in a statement to The Star, said it worked to accommodate Manley while her unit was being repaired.
Manley’s post drew viral attention to her story, and the video of the collapse has since been viewed 15 million times, per Facebook metrics. Hundreds of comments and thousands of reactions piled up on the post.
“I’m beyond frustrated, and deeply concerned for other current and future tenants,” she wrote. “This is unacceptable! Please think twice before signing a lease with Clearview Apartments.”
Prism paid for her accommodations while the company had the ceiling fixed. For her trouble, she was given a $233 rent credit. She said she heard a complex employee indicate that nails used to secure the ceiling drywall were a known issue. If the complex knew about the problem, management should have made fixes in between tenants, she said.
“I guess they are willing to just wait and take the gamble,” Manley said.
Her couch, TV and other items were damaged, and she hoped the complex would reimburse her further, but management declined, she said.
In a statement provided to The Star, Prism principal/co-founder Jeremy Antes described the collapse as an isolated incident. He confirmed the company paid for accommodations for Manley and had the unit fixed.
“Our initial review indicates that the incident likely stemmed from original construction practices in the early 1970s — long before Prism’s ownership and management — when nails were commonly used to secure ceiling drywall,” Antes said.
“Over decades, natural expansion and contraction of wood rafters can cause some nails to loosen. While this was an isolated event and has never occurred before at Clear View or any other property we manage, out of an abundance of caution we are proactively installing additional support screws in every ceiling throughout the Clear View community to ensure that a similar situation cannot re-occur.”
“We hold ourselves to consistently high standards of integrity, including fast responses and clear communication,” Antes said. “In the very rare instances where unexpected problems arise, we fully support the affected residents and work to resolve issues as quickly as possible. We deeply value the trust placed in us by those who choose to call our communities home, and we work every day to uphold it.”
April Leonard, a spokeswoman for Kansas City and the city’s Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program, said the program has received three complaints about the property since June 2024, including Manley’s case.
She confirmed the apartment complex covered lodging and meal expenses and gave a $233 rent credit. Leonard said there were currently no open cases at the property as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Aug. 13 ceiling collapse is not the first major issue Manley said she has dealt with at the complex in recent months. She moved into a new unit at the end of May after the living room floor in her previous unit began to bow and cave in, she said.
“I was excited, it was a different floor plan, they had assured me that it was much better,” she said. “And then 60 days later, the ceiling’s falling.”
She and her son have returned to the same unit, but they both are wary, she said. It’s unsettling to be back. Her son eyes the ceiling, wondering if it will fall again, terrified in his own home, she said.
“I just know in my heart that this isn’t right,” she said. “Something has to be said, I’m sorry.”
