Stupid Apartment Manager/Owners

Dec 19, 2007 20:14

I will put up with a lot of shit from people, witness my last job, because I am an incredibly even-tempered person. This is not any particular virtue on my part but rather the fact that my default temperament is one of good-natured apathy occasionally broken by cranky irritation. Getting angry requires effort, and I am just too damn lazy. However, when I do reach my breaking point the issue tends to get resolved in a somewhat dramatic, rapid fashion. Thus, I have a week and a half, give or take, to find a new apartment and get moved out of my current place. During Christmas...yes, fun.

My building has been having hot water issues for two months now. Originally it took them four days to get it fix. It then worked for about a week. It goes out (or rather, goes away. Apparently, part of the building is getting hot water, but not all of it) again. Works for a day or two, doesn't...and so on and so forth. There's pretty much no communication from the apartment manager (who has proven himself to be inept, apathetic, or malicious, I'm not sure which, during other issues the building has had since he started 6 months ago), except the occasional note on our doors saying the water will be off, or that they need to get into the apartment.

About a month ago, the ceiling in my bathroom started leaking, again. About 3 months ago it did it, and I'm fairly sure they never came in to even look at it, it just cleared up on its own. so, I call him up to get it fixed and to find out what the deal with the hot water is. He gives me this somewhat reasonable song and dance, it's an old building, something's screwed up, we're trying to track it down, etc. OK, fair enough.

It took them about a week to get the leak fixed, and they never did come back in to fix the damage to the plaster. And the hot water thing continues.

I call last week to get an update (still no communication from the dipshit) because they turned the water off on Tuesday to work on it and 'lo on Wednesday I again have no hot water (I had semi-hot water on Tuesday) and get pretty much the same story. We're working on it, we've done this, this and this and still can't find the problem. This cements my desire to move out the minute my lease expires in February, I don't want to move before then because one, moving is a pain and two, I don't want to fight re: the lease.

I again have sorta hot water over the weekend. Monday morning? Cold. Tuesday morning? Cold. This morning? Fucking freezing, but I /have/ to wash my hair and do one of those rapid very short showers. I'm pissed, I intend on calling and telling them I'll be moving out in January. I go to get dressed and I hear this 'drip', 'drip' from the bathroom. I assume I didn't get the shower turned all they way off. Nope...my ceiling is leaking /again/. Not badly, but that's irrelevant.

At this point, I'm furious. I threw shit, yelled at my cat, called the manager every nasty thing I could think of and pretty much just snapped. He doesn't get into the office until after 9am. So I'm at work, sharing my rant (and several people knew of the on-going saga) until 9. I call at 9:05, no answer. I call at 9:15, no answer. I call at 9:30, answer!

"Hi this is Kelley over at the Bayview. I haven't had hot water since Monday, I need you to let me out of my lease." This in my very, very, rarely used 'I'm angry, you /will/ give me what I want and you will give it to me now' voice. And then I accidentally hung up on him. Somehow, I'd either hit the power button on my cell, or jiggled the battery enough to disconnect it. Oops.

I call him right back with a yeah, my cell cut out on me. And he, very sheepishly says "So, you want out of your lease." "Yes. Seriously, I cannot live like this." "Yeah, I know. No problem. We don't want you to leave, but yeah..." "Fine, I'll get you something in writing." "Do you know when you'll be out by?" "The first." *stunned silence* followed by "Ok." "Great, bye." and I hung up, thrilled that I didn't have to threaten with a complaint to the city (which I'm still going to file, because I have suspicions that this isn't apathy or incompetence, but rather that the owners want the current tenants out).

I then promptly realized that shit, I have to find an apartment and get moved in less than two weeks. I've done it before, but it's a bitch and a half, and that wasn't at Christmas time. I went and looked at a place today that's gorgeous, but they already have an applicant for it and won't know until Friday if it's approved or not. I have a couple of places to call tomorrow that hopefully have something available that I can get into ASAP. Fortunately, my boss is cool and doesn't mind that I'm making these calls at work and taking off to go look at places.

So, yeah, much fun to be had.
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