Review History for disgustedrenter80

Garfield Commons


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disgustedrenter80

Resident ā€¢ 2013 - 2014

2/10/2014

I moved into the Garfield Commons on November 26, 2013. When I went to sign my lease, I was shown the apartment that I was to be living in and ------ assured me that they would fix all issues that I saw and that I could mark down all of my issues on a check list to be fixed. This form was due 2 weeks later which I turned in 2 days prior to the 2 week deadline. I requested that 10 items be taken care of ASAP. To this day, the majority of these items have not been done and the original work order was left behind by the maintenance department, all carbon copies and the original, so nobody in the office or maintenance was aware of any updates on my apartment except for the gentleman that came out, said he d be back after switching my refrigerator doors and never returned. I stopped in the office the next night to tell the office staff because they never answer the phone when I call multiple times after work between 5:30-6pm and ---- assured me that maintenance would return the next day but didn t. Finally, 2 days later, maintenance returned and all of the following excuses were given for my issues. The door jamb was looked at but my mother was told that weather stripping was on back order (maintenance has told me that Garfield Commons doesn t pay their bills so they were cut off from there supply company so he didn t know when he would be back out to fix it and that they take items and parts from empty apartments to fix the ones habited), the paint stuck to the counter would be removed when he came back to put the weather stripping on (which he never did come back), the blind in my kitchen wasn t replaced until the following week (you could see clear into my apartment, I had no privacy) and it was yellowed, smoke ridden, not the egg shell color mine are, the door handle on my bathroom wasn t changed but needed to be because after my 2nd day at the apartment, the door stop inside my bathroom hit the lock on the handle and I had been locked out of my apartment bathroom for almost 2 weeks. The door handle wasn t changed because they didn t have one in stock so the next day I went into the office to talk to ----- -------, property manager, and she told me that she has a bathroom door handle in her apartment that doesn t have a lock so she would have maintenance replace mine with hers. ------! It took me another week to get someone out to my apartment to complete this task. I also notified ----- that the porch on the 2nd floor was extremely slippery from the rain and snow and that some outdoor carpet or something should be put down as my children had both fallen already, they are 13 and 2, and I almost had a bad spill myself in front of my apartment door. She told me that she was already looking into getting a strip for the top step for all buildings because she knew about this issue but that the maintenance guys would put down some salt because in the summer maintenance painted the porches with glossy paint and it was a safety hazard, however; to this day, nothing has been done with that. There is not any outdoor carpet, mats, strips or anything of the kind to prevent injuries and law suits. I called out maintenance again for my hot water tank. I was only able to take 5 minute hot showers before my water went ice cold and I was unable to properly bathe my 2 year old daughter as she requires a bath. My hot water tank was built on 10/16/2008 and when the maintenance guy ---- came out to look at it, he turned it all the way up to the hottest setting and told me that the reason I was having issues was because it was a 20 gallon tank but that it was brand new and a 20 gallon tank is the requirement by Michigan law. As you can see from the pictures, it is a 40 gallon tank, not a 20 and it was built on 10/16/2008 so it was not new. That night, after ---- left, I went to go do dishes and nearly burned my hands due to the hot water that came out of the faucet. The following morning, I went to take a shower and once again, 5 minute hot shower, scalding at first and then ice cold. I notified the front office again of all of my issues, they sent 4 different maintenance people to my apartment. ----- and ------ looked at my hot water tank and ran my kitchen faucet to fix the 5 minute hot showers. They ran the kitchen sink for 5 minutes and since it was hot, they said it was fixed. They also changed my shower head to greatly lessen the pressure of water in hopes that it would make my showers last longer, this did work and added 2 more minutes to my morning shower, however; the water pressure is so weak that it takes me a lot longer to shower now and I am still running out of water. I can t even fill up the bath tub 3-4 inches for my daughter s baths without the water getting cold. It seems to me that they should have checked the bathroom hot water rather than the kitchen sink in order to diagnose the problem in my bathroom. I explained this to the maintenance supervisor at a later date and he told me that the same pressure that comes out of my kitchen sink comes out of my shower head all I could do was look at him in disbelief. I think this is self-explanatory but there is no way that those pressures are the same. If that was the case, we would all shower and bathe in our kitchen sinks! ---- and ---- came to rebuild my door jamb, ---- did most of it, ---- came over to check on it. ---- replaced the wood piece on the door jamb but when he was done, you could clearly still see outside through my door jamb and cold air was streaming in. He said he would be back in a few hours with weather stripping (again) and once again, he never returned. While replacing my door jamb, he also left his saw and tools in my apartment with myself and my 2 year old daughter. This was very irresponsible as my daughter could have gotten hurt and again, Garfield Commons would be in a great deal of legal trouble. ---- did pick up after himself when he was finished, he was very friendly and the work he did was good, it just didn t fix the original problem. I notified ---- via email and after numerous emails back and forth and days had passed, the maintenance supervisor and the property manager came out to my apartment. It was 11 below zero because Garfield Commons waited so long to repair my door. I had to complain multiple times AGAIN and tell them if they didn t come fix the windows that had ice on them and the door that you can feel cold air swirling at your feet in my apartment and it was freezing that I was calling the Fox 2 problem solvers. That day, the maintenance supervisor and the apartment manager came out to my apartment. I told them how on December 20, 2013, the appliance/laundry company came out to check on my washer because it was rocking all over town, hitting the hot water tank and creating a ridiculous amount of noise every time I did laundry. They came out and said the washer was broken and they would be out December 26th to replace it. My phone died on December 21st and I had forgotten to call the company to update my number so on December 27th after they didn t show, I called them and updated my number and asked when they could be out again. They said due to the holiday they would not be able to make it out until January 2nd, the following Thursday. I wasn t happy but I let them know that I would be waiting to hear from them and I would be home for them all day long and that I needed my dryer looked at as well because I was having to put my loads on for 120 minutes to get them dry, regardless of the size of the load. They never called, they never showed on January 2nd. I emailed the apartment complex and nobody ever addressed this issue, nor my request for a heat credit, nor my request for an updated rent adjustment form because I no longer had my dog, nor my request for considering allowing me out of my lease because this just wasn t working out. Everything in my apartment was broken including the stove that has a short in it and stops working when I bake, the dishwasher that doesn t get anything clean and food is stuck all over all of my dishes, the refrigerator when I moved in smelled like something had literally died in it, there is water damage in all the cupboards in the kitchen and the storage room, the floor in my bedroom is literally sinking and there are loose boards that stick up and my daughter trips on daily. ---- came out to address this and said he d be back, but never came back. My carport I requested was changed 2 times due to lack of documentation in the front office. When I first moved in there were 2 Reserved Parking signs in the carport area. ---- told me to pick which empty one I wanted and that she would record it. I told her 235 which was closest to my apartment. 2 days later, someone had parked in my spot because no Reserved Parking sign had been put up (which nobody is supposed to park in the carport unless they are assigned one or they supposedly get a ticket but they do it all the time) so I stopped in at the front office and told them. They told me that it was already assigned but they had forgotten to write it down so that I had to pick another one so I chose 237. Someone ended up parking in that spot the following weekend, it was a Saturday and the first big snow we had. Since it was a Saturday, nobody was in the office on Sunday so I had to call and leave a message. I called the office again a few days later to tell them that again, someone was parked in my spot and ----- called me to tell me that a resident didn t notice that others were parking in her assigned carport for 3 months because she works nights and never had time to come into the office to complain but that they had everything sorted out now and I was now assigned to 239. Again, nobody is doing their job in that front office. Back to maintenance, when the maintenance supervisor and complex manager came out to my apartment, I told them about all of the issues I was having. They didn t want me to show them the hot water problem. They dismissed everything I complained about such as the windows. They said they are old and there is nothing they can do about the ice on them, they said that the water pressure was the same in the bathroom and the kitchen, and ----- told me that they had nothing to do with the laundry service either. I explained to her how her tenants feel that she is responsible for the relationship between the laundry service and the apartment tenants. They didn t like what I had to say at all about anything especially when I said that the intelligence level of the maintenance department was an issue (they obviously aren t capable of doing their jobs), ----- stated on that note that they would be leaving and they did. I emailed them to find out when someone would be out to fix my door and they said this afternoon. It was 3 cold hours later before ---- showed up at 3:30pm. He came out to put in weather stripping and a door sweep. The part they refer to as weather stripping is a vinyl piece of material that looks like a piece of vinyl siding (see pictures). ---- was working on my door and attempting to fix the lock and the door got stuck shut so he knocked on the door and asked me if I could try to open it. I tried and told him that nope, it was stuck and it wasn t budging. He then told me to stand back and literally kicked open my door like a cop in a drug bust. The door jamb broke apart and splinters flew everywhere. My 2 year old daughter was 4-5 feet away from the door, standing behind me and when he kicked the door open, the lock landed 6 inches from her feet. It created quite a mess and I was literally in shock. I couldn t believe that he had just done that. He then left to go get some more supplies because now he had to redo what ---- had previously done to the apartment. In the meantime, my door wouldn t shut so the 11 below freezing air was coming in my door. ---- worked on this from approximately 3:30-5pm and during that time my heat never shut off. I emailed ----- about my issues with ---- and the events that took place and she said the regional manager wanted to speak to me. I told her that I would prefer to sit down and chat with her in my apartment to which ----- stated that the regional manager did not work out of that office and I told her that maintenance had already told me that she stops in twice per week so the next time she was scheduled to come in, please let me know and I would meet with her. I never heard another word from Garfield Commons. I even sent another email requesting the same work to be done which nobody responded to. I then sent an email stating that I was ready to take the next step in resolving these issues and that I was disappointed that I received an eviction notice on January 7th but still hadn t heard from the regional manager, received an update from maintenance or a revised notice of the amount of rent due. After pointing out their errors and mistakes, I finally I received a response ---- on January 14, 2014 to tell me that they now had paperwork for me to fill out to attempt to get my rent credit from corporate, that I had to suddenly fill out paperwork to have my rent adjusted to remove my dog from the lease and asked when a good time would be for me to come sign the documents and have maintenance come out again to address all of my issues. I told them they could come out after 4pm on Thursday or Friday, January 16th and 17th or I would be home all day on January 20th and ---- decided on January 20th stating that it would give maintenance plenty of time to plan what they were going to do. See, the problem is they have already been out 100 times and know what the issues are to be fixed, they just have to DO it and DO IT RIGHT. Living at this place is a nightmare and I just cannot allow my disabled parents and my small children to be subjected to this any longer. I requested that Garfield let me out of my lease and they stated that the policy was to live there for 3 months then pay 2 months rent plus a $200 buyout fee. I am a single mother and I simply cannot afford two places to live but I am moving out January 18th to keep my children warm and safe. I will fight them in court. The pictures of the progress of the apartment and my verbal accounts of what happened will be enough to convince any judge that this place is ridiculous. When I moved out on January 18th, the maintenance guys came by and harassed myself and my movers. The moving truck had one tire over the parking block to hold the truck in place as the parking lot is on a slant (cars even slid out of the parking spots this past winter, its ridiculous). Well apparently the truck was on a patch of snow and ice covered grass so they came out to complain. I explained that the grass is frozen and there wasn't going to be any damage and to have them prove to me that it was in fact grass and not cement under the tire and of course they didnt. They came out 3 times, the first time yelling out the maintenance van window as they drove by. I called my lawyer, told them so and they didnt come out again after that. February 10, 2014 I received a letter in the mail stating that I owe them $9,360.00 for rent from January through November of 2014 as well as a bunch of ridiculous fees they say I am responsible for. I would advise everyone to stay away from Brookline Management and RH Properties as well as the Garfield Commons apartments in Clinton Township, MI.

    Review 35 out of 111

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    Garfield Commons

    March 2024

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