Friday, the sheriff's office filed a public nuisance lawsuit against four apartment complexes near the University of South Florida, calling them "breeding grounds" for crime.

They're Amberton Apartments, Arlington Chase Apartments, Canterbury Lane Apartments and Carlisle Lakes Apartments.

They've been the scene of murders, rapes, drug violations and theft. Last year, deputies responded to 2,400 emergency calls at the four complexes, an average of six a day.

Deputies have tried talking to owners and managers about beefing up security and evicting criminals, but say they have gotten nowhere and a lawsuit was their last resort.

To their knowledge, it's the first time a law enforcement agency has filed a public nuisance lawsuit. They hope it works.

If the Sheriff's Office wins, it is asking a judge to make the owners hire their own, full-time security personnel, install security walls, secure access gates, evict criminals, comply with code enforcement, hire an independent property manager and post and enforce "No Trespassing" signs.

If they still don't comply, the Sheriff's Office calls for the court to close the apartments and evict tenants until the nuisance is gone.

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Last year, Sheriff David Gee started a task force to tackle crime in the "Suitcase City," which got its nickname because of the transient nature of its residents. Deputies made about 1,000 arrests.

Deputies, exhausted from reporting to those four apartment complexes, tried to contact owners about what they describe as squalid conditions and chronic crime.

Managers were often rotated, and absentee owners switched so frequently, it was hard to keep track of who was responsible.

"It's a continuing cycle of neglect," Chief Deputy Jose Docobo said.

They started compiling information for the lawsuit in August, scouring apartment review Web sites, talking to residents and digging through crime reports.

"The citizens living in these units were being victimized," Docobo said. "By the criminals ... and by the owners of these apartment complexes."

Carlisle Lakes Apartments

"Mismanagement? You're looking at it," Nichelle Benjamin said pointing up to her balcony.

"It's like the projects and we ain't in the projects," the 24-year-old said.

Only a few of the electrical sockets in her home work. There are bees in the walls that escape into the apartment and bats that fly in through structural cracks.

Stanley Walton hardly uses the vandalized laundry room.

"Clothes don't come out clean," the 28-year-old said.

Mirza Melendez moved from Puerto Rico five months ago.

Her first day there, she heard screams and scuffles from people fighting in the parking lot.

"It was the same like today," she said Friday afternoon, pointing across the common area.

A man beat his fists against the hood of a rusted blue Plymouth van, yelling at a woman atop an exposed stairwell. Little children cowered around her legs.

"I get scared," Melendez said.

Melendez has seen knife fights from her balcony and feels pounding on her sliding glass door in the dead of night.

"I go out during the day," she said, "but at night? I check my doors and windows and I stay in the house with my kids."

Calls to the management were not returned Friday.

But K.C. Poulin, spokesman for Critical Intervention Services, said the complex has improved since December 2006, when his security company was hired.

The security company used to patrol Carlisle, but discontinued its service two years ago when management stopped screening residents, he said.

That management was fired, Poulin said. And the new management asked for help.

"We're saturated in that area," Poulin said. "The property has changed dramatically. That doesn't mean it has not had an escalation over the past two years. We're not miracle workers."

Poulin says this year's change isn't communicated in the lawsuit, since it uses last year's statistics. He says security has issued 41 trespass citations, 180 violations and has coordinated 22 arrest events.

Amberton Apartments

The lawsuit says residents complain on apartment review Web sites of lazy, rude management, car thefts and frequent drug busts across the street.

Poulin, whose security company also moved into Amberton six months ago, said its owner is new and obsessed with security.

He says there's a disconnect with officials at the higher-level of the sheriff's office.

"They're looking at stats instead of what's going on in that neighborhood," Poulin said. "You can't just blame properties."

Arlington Apartments

Residents report to deputies that they hear gunshots at night. One man, who deputies do not name in the lawsuit, says "I would get up from bed and lay down on the floor so we wouldn't be hit by any stray bullets."

Residents call security a "facade" and a "joke." They say management has ignored broken windows, leaks, rats and termites.

Another resident quoted in the lawsuit says that at night, the playground fills with "people in dark sweatshirts with the hoods pulled up over their faces, and the only light coming out of the place was the occasional flicker from a lighter being passed around."

Owners could not be reached for comment.

Canterbury Lane Apartments

A bright yellow sign with red writing advertises the "$299 move-in special."

Children wander through the complex with no adult supervision. Some jump rope. Some play hand games.

Men with baggy pants walk muscular pit bulls at the ends of chains.

"The inner city is going to be the inner city," Willie McGowan, 47, said about the apartments.

"This is nothing abnormal."

Two years ago, someone shot resident Moses Hendricks Jr. in the chest for money and a bus pass.

A car was set on fire, others broken into. Someone found a dirty needle in their yard. Others live with bugs and mold, the lawsuit states.

Owners refused to comment Friday.

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Christopher E. Brown, an attorney for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, was specially appointed as an assistant state attorney to tackle this case.

Brown says owners will have 20 days to respond once the lawsuits are served. But ownership switches so frequently, the sheriff's office isn't even sure it has served all the right people.

"I don't think it's going to be easy," Brown said of the legal process started Friday.

"We're in it for the long haul," he said. "If we have to litigate this to the end, we will."

Times researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Alexandra Zayas can be reached at 813 226-3354 or azayas@sptimes.com

The four

Amberton Apartments, 1550 University Woods Place.

Size: 115 units.

Rent: between $700 and $750.

Occupancy: 90 to 100 percent.

911 calls last year: 44.

Owner: Barfield Bay Properties Inc. and/or RSG Amberton LLC in Marco Island.

Arlington Chase Apartments, 2225 E 131 Ave.

Size: 300 units.

Rent: $540 to $900.

Occupancy: 70 to 80 percent.

911 calls last year: 1,034. Owner: Asbury Apartments LLC in North Bay Village, Fla.

Canterbury Lane Apartments, 1250 Skipper Road

Size: 320 units.

Rent: $465 to $605.

Occupancy: 90 to 95 percent.

911 calls last year: 1,054.

Owner: Canterbury Lane Partners LLC in Brooklyn.

Carlisle Lakes Apartments I and II, 12535 Tinsley Circle and 1811 Tinsley Circle

Size: 321 units.

Rates $432 and $750.

Occupancy: 86 percent.

911 calls last year: 223.

Owner: Carlisle Lakes LTD, TCG Sherwood Lake LTD and Carlisle Development Group LLC in Miami.

Source: The Hillsborough Sheriff's Office.