Apartment Living at its Finest

Today will be another stray from the topic of this blog, as I'm not going to be comparing anything here in Louisville to something in St. Louis, but I will be complaining about something here. And in the future I may complain about things in St. Louis.

I live in an apartment complex. It's a decent apartment, 2 bedrooms, 2 bath and about 1100 square feet, for a decent price. So I am happy with where I'm living, but lately there have been serious problems. About 2 months ago I received a note on my door, "in order to ensure constant, regular water temperature" they would be doing work on my apartment. My first thought was that this would be great because I was annoyed with the water temperature fluctuating so badly.

So after about a week, I come home to discover 2 holes in my wall, for no apparent reason. Well, I let them be for a bit, and the next day the holes were plugged with insulation. However the next week, I found out why the holes were there in the first place. I came home to find two large copper pipes protruding from one hole to the other. Two days later, I came home to 5 more holes in the wall, and two plastic tubes hanging across my ceiling connecting 3 of the holes. Again, I was patient for the sake of progress.

Of course, that was over a month ago, and since those pipes and tubes have shown up, all I've received is the occasional message on my door saying, they are running "final tests" on everything. Since that day over a month ago, I've probably been off work during the week about 5 days. On NONE of those days, including today, have I seen any work being done on my building.

So last week I decided to email someone. At first I got no reply, but upon sending a second email, I got a very extensive reply from a woman who had just started a few weeks ago, explaining that she was sorry and the people they hired to do the job were way behind schedule, but they changed the contract giving them a deadline, and things would be done by this Friday. Ok, remember that date, Friday April 11. I find it hard to believe that it will be done by then...as ABSOLUTELY NO WORK has been done so far this week. They now have 3 days to get this shit done.

Anyway, I email her back, asking just what happens WHEN (not if) the work is not done by Friday. She just explained to me that the contractor would not be paid as much. Well, I'm certainly glad that by me having to live longer with these damn holes, the apartment complex is saving money.

Among the many other things covered in these emails, I requested some sort of compensation or the opportunity to get out of my lease early. Of course, she told me she had no power to do any of that, and kindly reminded me that I received a sizable discount in rent upon moving. Now, I'm not one to complain about discounts in rent, but I reminded her that I don't recall receiving that move-in discount in exchange for them putting holes in my wall. She cited me some Fair Housing bullshit (even though I believe Fair Housing Law applies to discrimination based on race, gender, etc...., similar to Equal Employment Opportunity). She said Fair Housing prohibits her from giving me any compensation or treating MY situation any different than any other.

However, and this is my favorite part, in a different email she completely contradicted this point. She reminded me of my rent discount, and said that since I was paying so little, she couldn't give me the same concessions she could give other people who paid a bit more. Yet she had just quoted fair housing saying she had to treat every situation the same. I plan on writing back an calling her out on that. I also plan to make her specifically cite the sections of the Fair Housing Act (which I have looked up and will read) that she is referring to. I plan to make her do quite a bit more work before I am through. Anyway, I'm going to attach copies of the emails for your pleasure, and I may post my continued correspondence.

To read the emails, click here