northside – The Lexington Tenant Review

'Patricia was super sweet when I first met her, which made her transgressions seem so confusing and frustrating. Our rent was for the entire house, except for the small side room that is accessible from the outside. That room was reserved for her air bnb guest. The door that separated them from our home is a sliding wooden door. Not sound proofed at all. Sound traveled so much in our own section of the home that we could actually hear our cats walk upstairs. Some of the air bnb guest were very noisy but we knew it wasn’t really their fault. At one point she moved her son into the air bnb room. We eventually got a text one day asking us to wear thick socks indoors because he found it to be too noisy. We were both small and we were out of the house most days working. It seemed kind of ridiculous to blame us for how thin the floors and walls were, to the point of expecting us to wear thick socks when we can literally hear her son pee from our room upstairs. Another headache was the cooling and heating of the place. Utilities were included in our rent (our rent was high for that area by the way). I figured our high rent was due to utilities being included. Because the insulation was so terrible, the upstairs would get boiling hot and freezing cold during summer and winter. We had to use the cooling and heating system often. I didn’t feel like I was using it at unreasonable times. The heat upstairs would be about 10 degrees hotter than it was outside. On several occasions, I would turn on the cooling system, and about 5 minutes later Patricia would text me asking if it was necessary for me to turn it on or if it was set no lower than 78. Patricia lives in the castle next door and has time to keep an eye on our vents. She often would complain to us about the utilities being too high. If we pay rent and it stipulates that utilities are included I feel like making us uncomfortable/guilty for using the utilities is totally over stepping a boundary. I was also pretty sure she came in our home to check the temperature settings on our system when we were not home without notifying us. The worst came when it was a month to move out. I had gotten a new car and planned on selling my old one. It was parked in MY driveway. She texted me “offering” to tow my car away for scrap. I told her that it is my car and it is absolutely not in her right to tow it. That is again absolutely overstepping boundaries. She then said she needed it moved so she could build a shed there. The driveway was our driveway, as part of our rental agreement. She justified it as the car being “abandoned” and in the lease we are not supposed to abandon items outside for a prolonged period. I had only stopped using it for a couple months, isn’t the driveway where people store their cars? Do multi car families use all their cars on a regular basis? By that point I only had about 4 weeks left before moving out and I was so fed up with her that I called the scrap yard myself. She is a nice and interesting person outside of being her tenant. As a landlord she does care about her property, and maintains it well. On the flip side, she continually overstepped boundaries. Was too protective of her property to the point where I did not feel like it was my home. I paid rent but it felt like I was a guest in her home instead. She gives off the vibe of peace and love with the artist lady act but as a landlord she is passive aggressive, doesn’t respect boundaries and is very exploitive. It was exhausting."

"Here are some of the transgressions: 1. He took about 10 months to replace our broken stove, leaving us with half of it working. He only replaced it when it was time to show the apartment. 2. We have reason to believe he came in unannounced because he did take away the stove coils, yet a month later they mysteriously reappeared in the drawer, unfixed. 3. When we moved in, the parking lot had a sign that says “security cameras in operation”. That is a lie, there were no cameras at the time. My car has been broken into twice, my roommates bike has been stolen twice. Our neighbor’s car window was even smashed in. Instead of being empathetic, or even helpful, the building manager berated us like we were children. My roommate also tried contacting the landlord many many times and he will refuse to respond. Finally, when it was closer to our moving out, maybe 11 months into our lease, they installed cameras. That was when my roommate’s second bike was stolen. We asked to have the security footage reviewed but they gave us a lame excuse saying they do not have time to look over footage for a bike. My roommate again called him and left messages. No response. 4. No sense of ethics or basic tenant safety; It was the during the time when everything was shut down, mid-May (our lease was up in August). Henry insisted on conducting apartment tours during a global pandemic. We begged him to please let us make a video or do some kind of virtual tour. We even made a video to his specifications in hopes that he would forgo physical apartment tours. He absolutely refused stating that “there was nothing he could do”. I told him this was extremely unethical and that he had all the power. He was offended that I called him unethical. He then sent out a mass text to the residents stating apartment tours were mandatory, but that they will take “precautions” such as wiping down surfaces. He scheduled us for 1 apartment tour and we begged again for him to not do this to us during the height of the pandemic. He refused. The day of, he actually brought several groups of people to come through, we definitely did not know about that, and all we could do is stand back and watch in horror. 5. Our apartment was dirty and in disrepair when we moved in. I even emphasized to the building manager that the apartment should be cleaned when we got there. There was hairs and pee flecks in the bathroom, the tub was disgusting and moldy, the kitchen still had food stains in the microwave and fridge, the floors were dirty. The window sills were full of dead flies and webs. What was worse is that now that the furniture was moved out of the way, we could see that the tile was broken and would often cut into our feet. We had to lay awkward pieces of rug to protect our feet. When we asked about why the apartment was so dirty, the building manager blamed the previous tenant for not cleaning well enough. I’m sorry but aren’t y’all responsible? She then gave us $40 to buy cleaning supplies. I also inquired about the walls being scuffed, yellowed, full of exposed plaster. She gave us two buckets of paint and said that if we painted our unit she would give us $100. No joke. 6. The mail was impossible; there are no signs to indicate to external carriers, or even USPS that the mail room was out back and required a key. There were a couple weeks when I stopped receiving my mail. My apartment is on the ground floor and several times the postman will open my BROKEN door thinking it was the mail room. Yes, I was topless once when that happened and it was embarrassing and scary. 7. The door is broken; anyone that wiggles it hard enough can get in. Mailman as example. I was again, blamed for the broken door. This time it was because “no one uses that door, you just have to lock it”. I told her it would not lock. She came by and held the door closed from the outside and told me to lock it. I couldn’t. She said “ok so it’s fixed!” I said no. She Walked Away. I bought a latch from the hardware store and installed it myself. I started to put a bag of gravel in front of it to stop it from swinging open during strong winds. The most frustrating parts was not being able to get responses from the landlord, like during our break-ins. We could only talk to them, only when it suited him (regarding the walkthroughs). Our safety and well being meant nothing to them. They would do as little as they can. Exploitative and unreasonable people."

Tag: northside

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