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They stopped paying rent in October, after the weather turned frigid and they had no heat.

The large complex of red-brick buildings on Natural Bridge Road is owned by a subsidiary of T.E.H. Realty, the troubled landlord that has abandoned several apartment complexes in the region and refused to respond to multiple charges of building code violations in the city of Bridgeton. For months, people who live in various apartment buildings owned by the company, which is made up of investors from Israel, have gone without heat, without water, or dealt with other unacceptable conditions.

The company missed payroll. Some of its buildings ended up in receivership. It abandoned entire complexes. And despite all of this, the company still wants to be paid for providing apartments with no heat.

This month, T.E.H. Realty, through the subsidiary that owns Bridgeport Crossing Apartments, sued Candice Jackson for back rent. She was shocked.

“It has been so cold,� she says. “I don’t know how it can be OK to provide people no heat and go after them for rent.�

It’s not, says her attorney, Robert Swearingen of the nonprofit .

On Thursday morning, Swearingen stood before St. Louis County Associate Circuit Court Judge John Newsham, and let the judge know that the Jacksons would be countersuing their landlord.

“I just can’t imagine why they are suing,� Swearingen said in an interview.

But, indeed, they are. Across the courtroom was attorney Matthew Chase, who represents the various T.E.H. entities. There were at least seven different LLCs connected to T.E.H. suing various tenants in court on Thursday. Most of the tenants were represented by Swearingen or Al Johnson, who works for another nonprofit, . But some folks who didn’t have attorneys showed up and signed consent judgments agreeing to pay back rent. Others didn’t show and will end up with a default judgment against them.

The whole process is “atrocious� Swearingen says, when the company refuses to show up in court itself to answer for not providing people the most basic amenities, such as a working furnace. Swearingen has at least six such clients, people who, like the Jacksons, have withheld their rent because they didn’t have a working furnace, but have now been sued by T.E.H.

Just by suing his clients, the rogue landlord makes it harder for them to obtain their next apartment, Swearingen says, because most landlords search online for such cases and often refuse to rent regardless of the specifics of a case.

Despite the lack of heat — and threats that water will be shut off next — the situation at Bridgeport Crossing is less bleak than some other T.E.H. properties because the buildings are in solid shape and the residents want to stay.

Why?

“People will do what they need to do to be in a good school district for their kids,� Frank Jackson says.

The complex is within the boundaries of the Pattonville School District, which has among the highest rankings in north St. Louis County. The Jacksons moved here from St. Ann and wanted to keep their 9- and 12-year-old in the same school district.

The $741 they pay — or did pay — per month for their two-bedroom apartment is less than what they were paying for a larger apartment elsewhere. They’re saving to buy a house. So they stay in a cold apartment, where they run the stove all day, and move a space heater from room to room to try to keep warm.

Taking a shower takes extra time because first they warm the bathroom with the space heater and make sure they have warm clothes to get into before heading into another, colder room.

The apartment manager told the Jacksons that T.E.H. no longer owns the complex, in an attempt to get them to start paying rent again.

But the name atop the lawsuit is: SM-T.E.H. Realty 4, LLC.

“Everything that has been wrong with this apartment has been wrong since Day One, and they’ve done nothing,� Candice Jackson says. “They don’t even care. Enough is enough.�