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Nothing but disappointment!
From:
lysa.howard09
Date posted:
1/21/2008
Years at this apartment:
2007
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2008
2 responses
When I moved into VNS last summer I had a really good vibe about the building. I have a good size 1 bedroom apartment in the South wing of the building. Although the leasing agent classified the redone kitchen as "new" its obvious that the appliances have been used/misused in the past. Compared to other rents in the building I lucked out and am paying about $300 less then other comparable 1 bedrooms. Someone on the tenants association (I'll get to them later) tried explaining the old rent control system to me. In the end because the person who lived in the apartment before me was there for something like 20 years the rent was considerably less then other apartments. I can't complain about that, although the rent still is pretty steep.
Within a week of moving into the apartment I found the paint was flaking near my heating/AC unit. On my way home from work one evening I mentioned it to one of the women at the front desk. She said she'd put in a maintenance request for me. A couple of days later I left for a business and was gone for a week or so. WhenI returned I figured that the problem would have been resolved. Nope! The flaking (and now cracking) was spreading across the wall. I immediately went down to the front desk and asked why the problem wasn't resolved. I was told that they never received a request for any work for my apartment. I asked to have another request put in and wanted the problem fixed the next day as I was having company over. After coming home from work the next day the flaking and cracking was still there.
At this point I went directly into the management office. After spending 15 minutes talking with the customer service girl/secretary I was informed that the work crew looked at the problem and needed to order supplies to fix the problem. Even though I knew this to be total bull (order supplies to fix a paint problem' C'mon, I may have been born at night but I wasn't born last night!) In the end it took me going down to the management office 3 more times to get the problem fixed. The last time I was practically yelling at the manager to get the problem fixed. It's not a hard thing to do.
I've also found the front desk staff to be either hot or cold. A couple are really nice but seem to have their hands tied on what they can and can't do. During the week during the day there are two people behind the desk. One is wonderful and really tries hard, the other woman needs some serious customer service training. She's on the computer checking email or talking on the phone and fails to acknowledge residents. She's frequently rude and not helpful in the least.
The building has a semi-active tenants association and I've heard that in the past it worked hard for tenants. In the 6 months I've been in the building I haven't heard about a meeting or anything. I've seen the "member" of the association board meet in the lobby or outside sometimes. I can't say they are very approachable, it seems like an "old boys network" if you ask me. I've had a few brief conversations with a couple of members. All were very nice, but I felt like I was an outsider. I expressed interest in getting involved in helping out. The woman politely told me that she would contact me. That was a few months ago and nothing since.
Two weeks ago we had a fire in the building that killed a resident in the West wing of the building. Within hours of the fire management had a notice under doors that informed residents of the importance of renters insurance. No sympathy or respect for the deceased. A total lack of disrespect not only for the woman who died but the residents as well. And during the whole ordeal fire alarms through out the building FAILED to work. A woman's apartment is ablaze and I didn't find out until I saw firefighters racing into the building.
VNS isn't the place I thought it once was. My standards aren't all that high. A nice and decent place to live. A staff that's courteous and most of all helpful. I haven't found these things at VNS. As soon as my lease is up this summer I will look somewhere else for a place to live.
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User Responses
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From:
nwdcrenter
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Date:
01/29/2008
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Hi Lysa,
I *totally* agree with you, especially about that awful letter that expressed no sympathy for the deceased woman. -fellow resident
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From:
Anonymous
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Date:
02/04/2008
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lysa,
i used to live in van ness south too, south building. wonder if you ended up with our apartment as we moved out last summer and we had a lot of flaking problems on our walls as well. VNS had some of the worst management staff i've ever seen. conversely, the service people were always very helpful and friendly.
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