Apartment Life

I've kept quiet on this but I feel like I am about to burst. There is just no justice for the dear apartment renters in MD. Unless your renting some sort of house you are going to get run over, chewed up, spit back out, and expected to just deal. *sigh*

When I lived in Philly the few issues I had were taken care of right away and honestly, the quality of where I lived versus what I paid was good. I got exactly what I paid for and the rent was cheap...but the service was at least there.

My short experiences here in MD have been awful! I moved into an apartment with my husband when we first got married north of B'more. He has already had an ongoing problem with the bathroom but the engineers there kept saying they were fixing it...and they would, temporarily, then it would happen again. Finally, we got a lawyer sudo involved and saw some real action. Granted the shower was almost un-usable for like a week...but it was finally fixed...mostly. I was 9 months pregnant and stopped caring because we had found another place to rent. We did not terminate lease early...we just paid rent there as normal for the next two months (bye bye wedding money). Oh well. The timing worked out..we had a place close to work for D and close to family for me and James.

So...there have been little snags and things have come up but mostly the work was done in a timely fashion, until recently. I guess when you are not a brand new renter your requests don't get heard as fast. Well, first our washer and dryer were having issues. Someone came out, took a look at it, replaced some tubing on the dryer and said everything checks out. Hmmm. A week later our washing machine leaked through our ceiling and into our living room. Thank goodness my sister was around and able to help me out with it. Finally got someone over around mid-day that day (the leak occurred at 6:30 in the morning) by going and physically looking for someone. Looked at it but couldn't do much on his own, had to wait for someone to help him.....next day came.

I again go and find someone and drag them back to look. Asks about the leak and without even looking at it determines that we need a new one, he'll put an order in with his boss and will let us know how long it will take.....3 days later (friday-monday) I finally break down and call...to find out they had not order anything yet! What?! They offer keys to another apartment to use that washer while ours was on order...7-10 days. Hmm..why not just move that one into our place and order one for the empty apartment. Oh well. 12 days later we finally get a washer....

this was only the beginning.

right around this time period we had a tree torn down right outside our bedroom window without any notice! Then holes appeared around our deck and yellow caution tape went up.....then nothing. The holes stayed, the tape swayed in the wind, the rain came, and the hole got deeper. From approx 4 inches initially to 3 or 4 feet down! From Rain! Meanwhile I was reporting it to the office and I kept getting the answer " we are looking into it."

6 WEEKS later I arrive home to see workers running around where the holes were...with a bulldozer and shovels. Looks like they are going to be doing some digging. Boy did I call that. They dug, and dug. Rain, sun, even weekends. The dug up the entire hill behind us and put up caution tape...and a tarp and wood, convieniently placed against our back windows and door....

Meanwhile the area around our townhouse became a mud pit and a hazard. We could not access our back deck for over 3 weeks! Not to mention the fact they were plugging their tools into our outlets! We are paying for access to the deck and we will get a bill for their usage!

Not fair!

I've told the Apartment about all of this. We've even gone so far as make up a timeline and submit pictures on a CD to the Head of the properties here in Columbia. Nothing. Last I heard she was going to look into the power for us. I am going to follow-up today.

The work that happened behind our place was NOT the apartments fault...but the lack of notification was. Anything would have been nice...not my having to inform them of the situation!

Needless to say, its been crazy. We probably didn't handle it the best we could....there was probably more we could have done...but now its too late. All I can do is write a letter explaining why we are disgruntled. If we see nothing from it...I mean, I'd be happy with an apology letter at this point...I WILL be submitting the same letter to a local paper.

Residents of Apartment Complexes should not have to put up with this kind of stuff! There should be recourses for them. I mean, if something happens to a client at a restaurant the manager is right there to fix it, however they can. *sigh*