apartment troubles
my wife finally convinced me to move to clearwater and take a job by the beach so she could be by the water. after much searching, i finally came across a small company named Sunbelt Software (http://www.sunbelt-software.com) and what we thought were some great apartments. five minutes from work...ten from the beach...1200 square feet...great layout...
so, we pack up all our stuff in the middle of hurricanes Frances and Ivan and moved down. as soon as we moved in we were ready to leave. i've never moved into an apartment that was so dirty and unkempt and so unhealthy. after spending about 24 hours in the apartment we had documented over 50 items that were wrong with the place...including a wonderful mold smell throughout the apartment. this was on September 17. we moved into a hotel on September 18.
anyway, through all of the back-and-forth with the management office (which is on it's 7th property manager in 14 months) and our lawyer and spending lots of money for hotels and getting nowhere. they kept saying that we took the apartment "as-is" (complete with dried urine stains on the toilet, pubic hairs in the medicine cabinet and all the mold you could breathe) we finally started getting some traction last week when they realized we were serious about taking them to court and that we weren't going to give in. (a certified letter to the corporate office in Texas detailing everything probably didn't hurt either.)
so, now we are waiting on a check for the security deposit. not what we wanted financially, as it is not even half of what we spent because of this, but at least we are out of the lease and living in a beautiful 1600 sq. foot house with hardwood floors. besides, we know that this fiasco is going to cost the apartment complex more than the $2k they had to give back to us since the city building inspector is investigating them now and they've already been cited twice for building code violations. (the first one was for our downstairs neighbor, the second one (which i still need to pick up a copy of) is either for our apartment or the entire complex. there is still some debate about that as i think it is for the entire complex and my wife thinks it is just our apartment.)
i'll post the name of the apartments once everything is finally settled and i have a check in hand.
so, we pack up all our stuff in the middle of hurricanes Frances and Ivan and moved down. as soon as we moved in we were ready to leave. i've never moved into an apartment that was so dirty and unkempt and so unhealthy. after spending about 24 hours in the apartment we had documented over 50 items that were wrong with the place...including a wonderful mold smell throughout the apartment. this was on September 17. we moved into a hotel on September 18.
anyway, through all of the back-and-forth with the management office (which is on it's 7th property manager in 14 months) and our lawyer and spending lots of money for hotels and getting nowhere. they kept saying that we took the apartment "as-is" (complete with dried urine stains on the toilet, pubic hairs in the medicine cabinet and all the mold you could breathe) we finally started getting some traction last week when they realized we were serious about taking them to court and that we weren't going to give in. (a certified letter to the corporate office in Texas detailing everything probably didn't hurt either.)
so, now we are waiting on a check for the security deposit. not what we wanted financially, as it is not even half of what we spent because of this, but at least we are out of the lease and living in a beautiful 1600 sq. foot house with hardwood floors. besides, we know that this fiasco is going to cost the apartment complex more than the $2k they had to give back to us since the city building inspector is investigating them now and they've already been cited twice for building code violations. (the first one was for our downstairs neighbor, the second one (which i still need to pick up a copy of) is either for our apartment or the entire complex. there is still some debate about that as i think it is for the entire complex and my wife thinks it is just our apartment.)
i'll post the name of the apartments once everything is finally settled and i have a check in hand.
Subscribe