[Indychick829]

so I was reading the other apartment issue down the line here - and it seems as if some of you MAY have a little insight. I know pretty much everything has to deal with the specific state's laws - but here's my issue:

First off - before I go into it - where would i FIND those state's laws on tenent's "rights"?

Ok. so I moved in with a girl whom I work with (at the time - same dept - now both in different departments) - anyways. We have a meeting with our apt. manager on friday (just fyi).
Our maintenance staff is a joke. A few months ago - we had to have our washer/dryer replaced and, apparantly the complex uses a 3rd party washer/dryer company - ok no big deal...however - when the staff from that other company came in to replace the washer/dryer - #1 our complex let them into our apartment ALONE without ANY of the office staff or maint. staff from our complex. My roommate found a "picture" on her computer that we assume the person whoever came in to replace the washer/dryer had taken of himself. ya'll can see where i'm going with this.

well, we complained to the office staff and management and - being that I personally had nothing to do with it since it wasn't my computer - i thought my roommate was taking all the steps to deal with it - well, she never sent the picture to them like she was supposed to - but now we're having other issues with the maint. staff and after I found out she never followed through with anything (she thought THEY were going to do all the work, asides from everything, my roommate's an idiot). So we have that issue that we are hoping to resolve now.

our last / current issue - friday I came home and found a note from the maint. staff stating, "there was an emergancy and we had to come into your apartment to fix a leak that happened downstairs due to your washer/dryer". well, first off - we had told them absolutely NO one was to enter our apartment without our knowledge, and i understand a "leak" falls under the "emergancy" clause - but they still should have called or something. anyways - the problem is - when they "fixed" the leak - they didn't plug our washer/dryer back in. so I called and they came over and fixed that. however, too...i noticed that right inside my roommate's room, her toilet seat was on top of all the bottles the maint. guys had to take off of our dryer as well as the LINT from the lint trap. they literally took everything off the top of the dryer and laid it in her room with the LINT and put this toilet seat on top. i called and asked if she'd put in a request for her toilet seat to be changed and she said, "No." she had no idea what i was talking about. so when she came home and saw that her toilet seat HAD been fixed, we asked the maint. guys (once they came over to plug the washer/dryer back in) why they'd changed the seat when we never requested it. They swore they didn't do it - and they called all the other maint. guys on the walkies and none of the others said they did it either.

my roommate has had our locks changed 5 times since she's moved in. we've had NOTHING but horrible maint. work and NOTHING but headaches from the office staff either.

I know they won't let us out of our lease (which is up at the end of May) - without paying to break the lease (which is 2 months rent + $400 - which is like $2000)
I'm HOPING they will give us a month free as well as put a HUGE red flag on our file saying, absolutely NO one is to come into our apartment without us there (which is what they were supposed to have done before when the picture incident happened...)

But regardless - I do know I want to go to the Better Business Bureau about them and I already put a really nasty rating on www.apartmentratings.com - but is there any other step I can take or threaten them with?

as far as the picture goes - it's only from the waist down and of course we can't "prove" who it was...

but i'm just trying to think of anything else we may be able to do too.

[Suzanne 3FC]

There is a website devoted to free legal advice, and they have a forum for landlord/tenant issues which may be of help. http://forum.freeadvice.com/forumdisplay.php?f=42 You tell them your state and question, and someone will give you info based on your state laws. They may even be able to point you to a state directory that lists tenant rights in your state. I've used their forum for various legal questions and have found them to be helpful.

[HappyHousewife]

I don't have any advice, but I can sympathize with you! Our office staff is incompetent and the maintenance staff is a joke! We still have a leak in our ceiling since Hurricane Katrina and they STILL haven't fixed it. Instead of ruining our carpet, we have to put pots on the floor. 2 of our electrical outlets do not work either. (fire hazard)? It makes me SO mad.

[Rosario]

You want to hear about incompetent office staff?? Every couple of months we get a letter saying that we have not payed rent. Uh, hello, rent is directly drafted from my bf's paycheck because, get this, he works for the management company. He works at a different property,though. You would think him being an employee, he'd get certain perks. Nope. Our locks were changed one day without them even contacting us. We came home one night to see that our key didn't work. Good thing the office was still open and they gave us a new key....but who does that??? WHat if we had come home just 20 min. later when the office would have been closed?? we would have been locked out. And that 24 hour emergency line doesn't work for crap. and forget about same-day, heck, even next-day maintenance. If this is how the property management's employees are treated, I hate to see the treatment that the regular tenant's get.

I don't know if there is much legally you can do, I say just stick it out as best you can, and when your lease is up, run far, far away.

[almostheaven]

As for the water leak issue, they are absolutely permitted to enter without notifying you at all in such a case. They had to do so with our upstairs neighbors when a leak there flooded us. But they ran into a snag as these people had two large viscious looking dogs, so they had to try and find the tennants. They reached them at work and made them come home and get the dogs.

[almostheaven]

BTW, I broke a lease once without penalty. But I had a documented paper trail of letters I sent addressing numerous issues. That flooding incident was one of three times we were flooded, as well as other problems, too numerous to mention, within a 6 month span. I threatened contacting the health dept. on one. So my "notice" was in the form of their dwelling being hazardous to my health and I must move because of this. They never pursued the lease.