Filing a formal complaint with apartment.?
I live out in Dallas and what’s known as a “luxury” apartment complex. The only reason we moved in was because we had heard such great things about it and the price was worth the space. It started out with not being able to move in after we were given our keys because it was a roach house. Our white walls were specked with brown, crawling, scattering creatures. It was disgusting and impossible to kill and clean. I shouldn’t have had to sweep up dead roaches every morning before I left for work. This moved on to an ant infestation, followed by window leaks with moldy smells during that period of torrential, non stop rain (for anyone living in the Dallas area if you remember those really floody two weeks). We were then over run by bed bugs which they refused to take care of for two months because when we had first complained it was contained in one bedroom and they wouldn’t do anything unless it was all over the apartment so I was bitten to death and went to work swollen, red and looked like I had been abused by my boyfriend. After that, we were great for about a month thinking all our problems were solved. The next nightmare started with faulty wiring causing our electricity to trip every time we did something. Being nerds we’ve got our computers running at all hours but as normal humans, we also like to take showers, watch tv, cook, have the lights on and generally live a normal life. We were told that it was our fault the electricity kept going out because by cooking, having the tv and computer going with one of us taking a shower we were tripping the wires and causing our electricity to fail. I filed complaints for over a month with a rude maintenance man telling me it was their fault and the wiring was frayed and old, having never been changed. It took a new tenant moving into the building and having the same problem to get this fixed. (3 month period) We actually used flashlights and candles when we came home from work because we were too scared to turn on the electricity.
Things were better for a few months until last night. The fire alarms went off at 4 am and were not fixed till around 6 am. All the tenants walked through their apartments to see if any of us had left an appliance on and then were told it might be a chemical reaction in the building. The fire fighters had no idea what was wrong or how to turn the alarms off because the panel was inside a tool shed that was completely locked up. The maintenance man admitted to us last night that the panel to the fire alarm controls had to be changed months ago because they were old. That’s unacceptable to me. I don’t pay 1000$ to live in an apt with faulty wiring and bug infestations.
I tried to talk to the apartment manager but because of the amount of complaints she’s been getting from her tenants, now refuses to work on the weekends. The leasing consultants told us it had been fixed two hours after we went to bed. Sorry, but i don’t believe them. I’m not trying to be rude or bothersome but I think these are hazards that should be taken into consideration immediately.
Sorry for the long story but…is there any way I can file a complaint because I cannot get the manager to respond and the leasing consultants refuse to give any information about fixes or solutions.
May 12th, 2011 at 3:34 am
I guess it’s all relative. $1000 a month isn’t a luxury apartment in many places and would wave HUGE too good to be true flags with me.
Why did you move into a place with roaches constantly crawling on the walls? This seems like it was something that should have been noticed with your initial visit and then on your walkthrough.
Unless you can prove that the bedbugs were there when you moved in and didn’t come from you, you’ll be responsible for them. Ants tend to come into homes during massive rain periods like you describe. Putting packing tape over their entry point is one of the best non-toxic ways to be rid of them.
Regardless, your state housing board and health & sanitation departments can be contacted to potentially file complaints. But I’m not really sure what you are wanting to accomplish with this. The landlord will be issued “fix-it” tickets if a problem is found and it could drag on for months and years.
If you are looking to void your lease, then follow what I assume is Texas state laws on how to break a lease over non-completed repairs. Google “Landlord Tenant Texas Repairs” to get the step by step.
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May 12th, 2011 at 4:34 am
How horrible! My heart goes out to you.
First: Are you: 1. Seeking to have the problems repaired, or 2. Seeking to break your lease so that you can move elsewhere?
Actually, it doesn’t matter because either way you have to start in the same place:
First, document all the problems you’ve had, the dates they occurred, any medications or creams you had to use for your bugbites, photos of your bitten face and the bugs on the walls, the dates and times that your electricity failed; the name of the maintenance man who said that the fire alarm controls were out of date (and what was the date of expiration), etc.
Then the next time that you have a problem with your apartment, tell your landlord that if the problem is not rectified immediately that you will report the landlord to proper city authorities. Follow through if necessary; write a formal letter to the proper city authority and send it certified mail so it doesn’t get ‘lost’ in the paperwork. You can find out the proper city authority to report to either by researching it online or using your phone book/phone and talking to people until you get referred to the right place.
Hey, when I lived in San Jose Ca, I had a problem with the city resolved by calling the San Jose City Council. You can try calling the Dallas City Council–the Council’s clout alone may have an impact on your landlord.
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