Three Stories Regarding Unliveble Conditions and Harassment

_{The following stories involve a single tenant who told me her story. I'm summarizing it here.}

Story One: Harassment

About half a year ago, the Manager came to apartment of tenant at about 9 PM and knocked very hard “scared the shit” out of the tenant. The tenant, a recently widowed mother, was afraid not knowing who was knocking so urgently to see what was the emergency. She went and opened the door only to be surprised by the Manager, half-naked in a bathrobe who immediately began screaming and shouting accusing the tenant of dropping her trash in front of the dumpster. In the midst of her accusations and rant she even yelled at her son. She forced the tenant and her son to go and clean it in the middle of the night.

The Manager made not point to clarify whose trash it was. In fact the trash, which consisted of a pregnancy test and Asian takeout, did not belong to neither the tenant nor her son. Nevertheless, they cleaned most of the mess.

Story Two: Sewage Flood and Unlivable Conditions

Roughly a year ago, issues with the pipes caused sewage to rise from the tenant's toilet and completely covered the bathroom and entered the master bedroom.

The tenant asked for a clean up crew to come and handle the clean up of the sewage. The Managers had cleaners come and clean up; unfortunately, the cleaning crew cleaned the carpet but not the bathroom. Moreover, in the process of starting to clean up the bathroom they removed some things that fell into the sewage in the bathroom.

The tenant complained that the job was left unfinished. After a dispute with the Manager, the cleaning team was sent back.

At this point, the carpet was still dirty and unsanitary. The tenant requested that the carpet be replaced, which was rebuffed by the Manager who said that that was the tenant’s responsibility. A year later, the carpet has yet to be replaced. A formal complaint has been registered with the City of Glendale.

Story Three: Hardwood Floor Issues and Unlivable Conditions

Over a year ago, the tenant's kitchen hardwood floor began to bubble and fringe. The tenant complained to the Management that it needed to be fixed. The Management didn’t even acknowledge the issue. Later the bubble burst, leaving splinters of hardwood exposed to the Tenant, her son, and her pets. Despite having tried to fix it herself, the tenant reports that she has tripped over it many times.

Up till this week, the issue has yet to even be acknowledged by the Management.

Animal Urine and Feces

Upon visiting the Falls at Montrose, you'll notice plenty of this:



which I posted in the first post.

This is a chronic problem at the Falls, so much so, the Management acknowledges it on each monthly flier they distribute. Despite warnings of fines, one a given weekend you'll see this:







Just in walking out to my car. These photos were taken over the course of a weekend on the grass at the Falls and on the side walks on Valderas and within the falls itself.

A tenant remarked to me that they have often complained and sent photos to Management asking for specific action be done to clean up feces and urine. Management has never responded to her emails and the feces and/or urine seemingly persist with no action being done.

Now I personally never noticed marks of urine, but the tenant alerted me that the ever-present splotches I see on the walkways of the Falls are in fact urine. The tenant contact management several days ago with this photo:



Management has not replied, let alone cleaned it. In fact, the number of these splotches along the walkways is alarming. While it's at first the pet owner's responsibility, it is next the responsibility of Management to maintain the grounds and develop better countermeasures to this behavior. None of which is seemingly being done.

Welcome to the Falls at Montrose!

So you're deciding to move to the Falls at Montrose? Maybe you heard about it by word of mouth at the Blue Moon Bar a few blocks away? Perhaps it was one of the posts on MyNewPlace.com or ForRent.com? It's possible you caught a glimpse of one of the eyesore signs they put up around the neighborhood?

Well, let me help you make your decision: don't.

Over time, I'll be posting tenant testimonials and background on the City of Glendale lawsuit against the Falls, but let's start with some trivialities regarding their post on MyNewPlace:

"With community features such as a sparkling swimming pool"

How about we take a gander at a recent pool inspection record (I'll be making this its own post later) which is located here. What do they have to say?

"Pool at THE FALLS AT MONTROSE inspected: 13 violations"

Let's list a few of these:

• Filter needed cleaning
• Inadequate skimming
• pH not acceptable
  
• Not enough chlorine
• No automatic chlorinator
• Turbidity (i.e. cloudy water/not visually clean)
  
• No one officially listed as maintaining a pool

Eek! Guess it's not so sparkling! Needless to say, there's a few more.


What else does the ad have to say?

"lush, green landscaping, and an enchanting waterfall that flows through the entire community, you'll want your next home to be at The Falls at Montrose."

Lush? Well, it certain has been lush. So lush that they had to cut branches trees around the complex that were, according to rumor, in violation of fire code.

Green landscaping? Well if you come for your visit, you'll notice quite a few barren spots which is likely related to the Falls being a little too pet friendly. So pet friendly, the dogs let themselves go where ever they want (this'll make the subject of it's own post later):



In all fairness, it is difficult to enforce this and the Management has threatened to punish those that can't contain their pets' love--but this does not appear to have ever been enforced.

So this is a very humble beginning. You may be wondernig that these are fairly trivial issues and they are, all things considered. Once I formalize some tenant statements, I'll be putting those up which will account the following:

• The Manager joking with one tenant about peeing on and damaging another tenant's car while at work
• The Manager calling a tenant at work to harass him for asking an assistent why she missed an agreement on appointment.
  
• The Management failing to replace feces stained carpet for months

As well as some details on the City of Glendale lawsuit.