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GREENSBORO — Employees of two local apartment complexes say they haven’t been paid in nearly five weeks as the California-based company that owns the properties wrestles with financial problems.

Workers at two other complexes in Winston-Salem also have been affected by the difficulties faced by the Bethany Group, which owns apartments across the country.

Two state agencies said Tuesday they have received complaints from at least one worker and several tenants in the Triad.

An official at the N.C. Department of Labor said a Bethany employee from Statesville filed a complaint last week charging the company owed that worker more than $5,400 in unpaid wages in February.

It could not be determined where the employee worked.

“I cannot divulge a lot about it,” Dolores Quesenberry, a spokeswoman for the department, said of the complaint. “If an investigator finds that others have not been paid, they can ... investigate those cases as well.”

Workers at the Greensboro complexes — the Lakes on Meadowood and The Ashland, both in the western part of the city — declined to talk publicly about their situations Tuesday.

“Nope,” said an employee at The Ashland, when asked if he was being paid. “That’s all I got to say.”

Another Bethany employee said he hasn’t been paid since Feb. 6.

The two complexes have about eight employees.

A tenant at the Lakes on Meadowood said he had not heard about the ownership’s financial problems.

“Everything has been about the same,” said Cecil Lundy, who has lived at the complex for two years. “I know they stopped cutting the grass.”

But tenants elsewhere have started to complain about living conditions.

An official at the N.C. Attorney General’s Office said Tuesday her office has gotten complaints from residents in Greensboro and Winston-Salem about unpaid utility bills and general maintenance.

“It’s moving pretty rapidly right now,” said Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office. “We are trying to gather information and figure out what the tenants’ rights are under the circumstances.”

Efforts to reach Bethany officials Tuesday were unsuccessful. The company owns The Waverly and Hunt Club apartments in Winston-Salem.

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com