My apartment place is very lacking in their maintainence when it comes to plowing. We had like 15" of snow that fell last weekend, and we just got another 15" like 3 days ago. The never plowed between the two snowfalls and there is a good 3" of Ice in the parking lots and the sidewalks have a path plowed in them about 2' wide with 2" of ice on them. It makes me mad because I have almost fallen over because of this, and I know other people have probably done the same and I dont want to see anyone hurt. Also i dont want someone sliding into my truck. So i wrote a semi nasty letter i was just wondering if it sounds fitting?

Hi,

My name is Peter Tuma and I live in Apartment #406. I am concerned with Highland Hills ability to address the snowfall that we have had recently. It has been over a week since the first snow started falling. There is over an inch of ICE built up on our sidewalk. Furthermore the parking lot is a total disaster. Even after they plow tomorrow (3/6/07, which we never received a notice for) it will still be a skating rink until we get some warm weather, which could be another month yet. This is all due to pure negligence on Highland Hills part. The parking lot should have been plowed after the first snowfall to prevent such a buildup of ice and snow. What's the deal? Too lazy? Cost too much? The income of this place has to be beyond measure, there's no reason that the parking lot couldn't have been plowed at least 2 times already. If money is the issue, aren't you more concerned with the safety of your tenants than the meaningless dollars it costs to plow? The path cut in the snow on our sidewalk is about 2' wide, which is barely enough to get two people in. It is also covered with 2" of ICE. This is a very dangerous situation considering many people use these sidewalks to walk back and fourth between school and home. I hope you never wonder why people write bad reviews about this place online, it certainly deserves it. I love your slogan "Highland Hills Is All About You!" What a lie. I can't believe I was suckered in by this weasel like catch phrase. At least I can sleep at night knowing I'm not the one who is putting their tenants in danger.

I hope the next snowfall gets addressed more quickly for the sake of peoples safety. Not to mention the inconvenience of having to push out everybody who doesn't have a 4x4 vehicle, oh wait, I had to push out a 4x4 too. I will certainly not be renewing my lease with Highland Hills, and everybody I meet I will tell them the same. Highland is a horrible place to live and is certainly not all about its tenants.

If nothing else comes of this e-mail would you at least go by and salt the sidewalks so no one gets hurt please.

Sincerely,
Peter Tuma

 

I could understand your concern. Unless you are definetyl moving out (sounds like you are), I would leave out the part about not renewing your lease until after you see what kind of response you get on the rest of the letter. Possibly you might be compensated by some means for your troubles. How bout having other tenants read and sign your letter. Is your complex managed by some independent company?

 

Yeah, i believe its actually owned by some MFDC company, not just managed, if you go to www.mfdc.com it kind of tells you a little bit about stuff. All Lies. After i got done sending my email, i went out to get our truck started, and there was a car sitting infront of one of the parking lot exits/entrances with no one in it. It was perpendicular to the roadway, the front two wheels were stuck in a tire rut from the beaten path that they didnt plow. So i called security and the lady said something about sending security. A little later the owner of the car was out there and i told her she should call security and she said she allready had and they told her she was SOL. They said she would have to call a tow truck at her own expense.

 

I would have reminded them of potential liability in the letter. If somebody slips and falls and gets hurt, there will be a lawsuit.

Speaking of which, it might be a good idea to snap a few pics and keep them on file.

 

I hate to say it, Peter, but that letter will end up in the trash. If you want it to be effective, you have to stick to the facts and be civil. The last two lines of your first paragraph are only antagonistic and do nothing to encourage them to do the right thing.

Diplomacy first, then there may be a need to threaten legal action. BTW, this should probably not be in the GA forum.

Jason

 

I agree the letter will probably end up in the garbage, although I think the reason will be more because the management company doesn't give a crap in general. I don't think anyone is going to take Peter's letter personally.

Clearing snow and putting sand and salt down is a basic service for any apartment complex, a service that every tenant has a contractually-entitled right to when they sign a lease. I don't necessarily feel that it's a tenant's obligation to have to politely encourage a landlord to do what's already supposed to have been done. Not when the subject involves safety.

Peter probably could have been more diplomatic in his letter word-wise, but IMO his tone and message were appropriate for the circumstances.

(FWIW, I am a multi-unit landlord).

 

pack up and move is what i say to do ...because its probley not gonna get any better , and like jroehl said its gonna get put in the garbage.

 

College kids are pretty sturdy... Just kidding, I know how you feel.

I'd tone the letter down abit. I don't know of many people that respond well to anger.

Have you gone directly to the management office? Not the onsite office but the actual company office? File a complaint with the highest person you can find. The lower employees don't care but the higher ups get big money and do NOT want to lose it.

 

Well its apparent that no one cares. I woke up the morning to my girlfriend saying "my car is gone and they're about to tow your brothers truck". I am driving my brothers truck because i am fixing some things on it so i left my truck at my parents house and took his. Sure enough, the ol tow truck is about to tow my brothers truck. So i throw on some clothes and go out there with the keys and a guy I know who works for highland has them stop towing, and i move the truck.

When they (rarely) plow our parking lots, they make everybody park on 1/2 of the complex one day, while they plow the empty side, and then the next day everybody parks on the other half of the complex while they plow the other side. The only problem is there is no place to park. People are parked on sidewalks, roadways, everywhere. I had to go grocery shopping after my 9PM class so i didnt get back with my truck until like 11PM and there were no parking spots, so i just parked on our side of the complex which was being plowed this morning, at least i assume so because no one else was in the lot and i never saw a notice. I couldnt just leave the truck at college because their free lot you cant park from 2am to 6am. So i figured since they didnt start plowing until like noon last time, that they would do the same this time.

Well i guess not, they allready were starting to tow people to god knows where. So i went to talk to the managment and they said it wasnt their responsibility to provide me a parking spot when they are plowing. They said they dont even have to provide me with a 24 hour parking spot. They basically said they dont care and that i'm up a creek without a paddle. So we have to pay the 50$ or whatever it is to get our car back.

 

Agreed. The tone of the letter is pretty strong.......

Is this an ongoing problem?.......Have you ever contacted them before?.......

Tone it down and leave out words like "lazy" and "lies" and "weasels" and challenging them on how much money they make or not caring about their tenants........

Don't burn your bridges before you know for a fact that you're on the right side of the river.......

Steve

 

Yeah, its an ongoing problem, every time it snows they never plow until it snows again and peoples start to get stuck and start to call and complain. There is no bridge here. Its a river with me on one side and them on the other. They are horrible about shoveling sidelwaks.

So far, I understand all of the parking lot plowing and I can not really do anything to change it. But here's what i'm after.

There are no provisions in my rental lease that says they can tow a vehicle for plowing, and there is no such thing in our rental handbook. Furthermore there are no provisions that say they can slim jim a vehicle to gain access to it for the purpose of removing it from 4x4 so they can tow it. As far as i'm concerned they are guilty of tampering with a motor vehicle. How do i know they didnt steal anything out of it? Who's going to be liable if it is damaged? Not me, i never signed anything that says i would. The only thing i can find about towing says basically park your car next to your building (which i did) and you have to have a permit. It also says that it may be towed if it is parked on the grass or next to a dumpster.

 

You can't have it both ways - you blasted them for not plowing and now you are blasting them for plowing earlier than was convenient to you. Maybe your letter got their attention as well as some retaliation. Sorry but you invited this on yourself.

When I managed a four-family building for my family, we told every potential tenant that one off street parking spot was available but when it snowed, park on the street until we cleared the snow and that we didn't guarantee snow removal from the parking area. If they didn't like it/agree to it they could use the street. We never got complaints since off street parking is a valuable perk to a tenant in the Boston area.

A quick economics lesson - total income of a complex is very easy to measure. Number of units multiplied by the monthly rent is monthly gross income. Fixed, finite. Now, subtract those who don't pay their rent, repairs, maintenance, insurance, taxes, utilities, legal fees, advertising, empty units, mortgage payments, interest and so on. You see where I am going with this? The downside is unlimited, the upside is finite. This isn't an excuse to not plow snow but just because a complex has a lot of units, doesn't mean someone is getting rich off it.

 

Whenever one writes a letter for something like this ... one should read it as if they just received it from someone else to get an idea of how they come across...... before they send it.

 

convenience doesnt bother me, lack of consistency does. There's nothing in my rental agreement that says when they plow or how often, if there was there would never be a problem. If they're going to plow at noon, then start plowing at noon, if they want to do it at 8:00 AM, then do it then, just make it consistent. Its a huge complex with many people, jumping across the board every time you do something confuses alot of people and screwes things up for them.

I really wouldnt mind if they would put it in our lease that we need to find somwhere else to park for snow removal, but there is absolutly nothing regarding snow removal in our lease or our apartment handbook. Around here you cant even park on a street. Its that simple, when there is no where to park, there is just no where to park, all the other complexes are permit parking, the school only has special hours you can park, and most businesses have signs up that say "for xyz customers only". You basically drive around until you can, or you park somwhere like a gas station or something and get a ride back to your apartment. But that doesnt work to well when its almost midnight.



If someone wasnt getting rich off of it, they wouldnt be in this business. I just dont feel like I am being taken care of as a tenant. I feel like it is their responsibility to maintain the lot, no matter how many apartments they have. THey just finished plowing and the lot doesnt even look any different because its all packed snow and ICE.

 

If you are seeking to get something done, a properly written letter to the right person is a good start (send it registered mail, receipt requested). Never start a serious letter with "Hi". Try to come across (in as few words as possible) as a tenant concerned about safety, not as an accuser railing about negligence.