Providence Park
  (formerly Brandon Park)

Brandon Park Associates From: CherryBobbery Date posted: 6/17/2008 Years at this apartment: 2005 - 2008 5 responses   First Post - March 2008 - I am a current resident at Providence Park and have been here since January of 2005. I lost my home of ten years in hurricane Jeanne, September of 2004. We lost everything we owned except for a very few items and had to buy all new everything with no help from the government, no home owners insurance due to Florida's insurance companies going around cancelling everyone they can think of and no help from anyone whatsoever ... we started over, from scratch, alone. At the time we were finally out of shock enough to look for a place to live, this was the only apartment complex we found with one two bedroom apartment available. The leasing agent at the time, Miguel Martinez, was a great person to deal with and full of knowledge and far better a person and business person than the manager of the place. We moved in and we have remained here ever since because we are previous home owners who just are not into moving around. We pay our rent quarterly without fail by paying three months rent and when it is within a week or two before moneys are due we pay another three months rent. I pay all of my bills in this fashion. I most likely will begin month to month rent payments because these people have proven to be untrustworthy and I cannot count on them and I do not trust that they might make up some bs reason to evict me being as I do not cow tow to their unorganized bs and their bs in general and I wouldn't trust them to give back to me the extra rent I have paid in advance. There has been a management change since we have been here and now also a leasing agent change. The office for Providence Park is now so completely unorganized it is unbelieveable. We signed a new lease and were told we would receive our copy within a week. Never got the copy. My husband stopped by two weeks later an hour and a half before the office hours were to be closed and nobody was there. He stopped by again after getting off of work early to do so and around 2pm and the manager had the door locked and would not acknowledge that my husband was at the door. They are an hour and two late to open the office, may or may not unlock the doors for you any time of the day and they leave an hour and two before office hours are stated as closing time. They do not answer the phone and they do not return phone calls. Finally my husband was able to find the new leasing agent in the office who could not find the lease that we signed so my husband and I were to go together the following Saturday to sign the lease all over again. We waited 45 minutes for the leasing agent to decide he would come into work for the day and when he did arrive so late there were five groups of people standing out front all waiting on him as he passes by all of us without a word, no excuse me for being late, no apology for being late, not even a hello or come on inside. I decided I guess we are to go in now so I went inside. First he says he found our lease and went through two piles of envelopes but no lease so he says he will type up a new one. While typing up the new one he could not find our folder and so went around looking for that ... not sure if he ever found it. We sign the lease of which he refuses to give to me a photo copy so that I can have proof that I did sign the darn thing and I let him know that I did not appreciate that they are never there, arrive an hour and two late, may or may not open the doors, leave an hour and two early, do not answer the phone and do not return phone calls and they are unorganized and lose leases as if we have nothing to do in our lives but to keep coming back to re-sign leases for them. The following Thursday our truck was towed out of the parking lot because we were parked beside our harley davidson of which we were told when we moved into this place that we are allowed two parking spaces and as long as we kept our bike and our truck within those two spaces we could park as close as we want to our own bike and we have parked in this fashion every night for three years. It cost us 188 dollars once the towing company actually decided to come to work, as they were two hours late, and stop holding our truck as hostage. It cost us 164 dollars days pay also. A total of 352 dollars. The Providence Park office has confirmed that we are allowed our two parking spaces and if we were parked close beside our own bike then that was no problem. The coorperate office in Tampa has yet to answer the phone or return any phone calls in regards to the matter. It is not the money as a big issue to us even though yes I do want our 352 dollars given to us ... but ... it is the fact that this place does not appreciate the very extreme few decent renters that they do have and obviously prefer to continue to rent to those that tear the place up, ruin the place, create disturbances and make life miserable. These people do not deserve to have decent renters as they obviously do not have any earthly idea what decency is. We have already signed the year lease and not sure if its lost or not and won't know until either we never get our copy or it shows up in the mail ... who knows with this completely unorganized outfit they run here. We have tolerated a lot of bull just to live here due to the low class way of life that does surround us and obviously this place would much prefer to rent to that kind of people. I just went outside and spent two hours cleaning up a big mess made and the mess because rather than to fix a hole in the patio ceiling three years ago when I reported it they now are having to fix a near falling down front of the building three years later and the company fixing it left a zillion nails all over the place out front here where I live and all over my patio and surrounding my patio along with big wire pieces from the buiding and broken blocks and wood and on and on. They also left, over night, their boom truck extended in the air across the entire path that we all have to walk which is extremely dangerous. The maintenance here has no idea what they are doing ... tell them you need a handle to your toilet and they show up with a plunger. Have them over to fix your leaky kitchen sink pipes, they leave the pipes off and the upstairs neighbors flood you out. Have them over to fix the sink and they go to the air conditioner and begin opening individually wrapped filters that you have purchased, throwing the plastic wrap down on the floor and leaving it there, when you have just put in a brand new filter that you purchased. I buy my own filters because what I buy is much better than the cheap ones they give for free and I replace mine twice a month because I take care of my things, my place of living. They have no respect here of your place or your belongings. The inside bottom of our kitchen cabinet under the sink is caving in due to the flooding that goes on here between upstairs tennants and maintenance who does not put pipes back together. The bathroom cabinet all around the bottom is crumbling. There is a dark water strip running along the supposedly new carpet that was to be here when we moved in ... I have people to vouch for the fact that this carpet was not 'new' ... maybe it was used newly put down but no way was it new carpet. I have heard several tennants state that they were being billed for so-called new carpet that they supposedly messed up and being as I know for a fact they say this is new carpet, when it is not, I can believe the tennants when they say the carpet was already messed up when they moved in. We have had to tolerate non-stop parties around us ... tolerate security telling us it is too late to go bother the loud ones to tell them to quiet down so that we can sleep ... tolerate crackheads out here in the breezeway having big fights once the crack has ran out and they cant get their crack dealer on the phone and we know this because they do all of this right here outside of our door ... punching everything out here including my apartment door, spewing blood around, screaming obscenities at each other, tearing the place up ... on and on and on while security does nothing. I have my own washer and dryer but they do provide them. I did have my on fridge and stove of which I wish I kept because the provided stove burners may or may not work and I can barely read the numbers on the dials to the stove. The provided fridge leaks water inside and I have to keep a towel in it and it is breaking apart inside and it is shorter than I am ... I am 5'3" and never have seen a fridge so small except when I was camping. We have to rent a two bedroom just to fit our belongings and we can only fit one chest of drawers in one bedroom with the bed so mine is in the other room ... matchbox living ... but it does seem that most apartments are dinky small this way. I have to live with the fact that I cannot open my windows because there are holes in the screens and if I dare open the bedroom window the entire window will fall out and I have been ignored when I request that this be fixed ... so it is forever stale and moldy air due to all of the flooding from above tennants and we do keep constant sinus troubles ever since moving into this place. I can deal with all of this ... I can even deal with the fact that I have to do my own maintenance if I want it done right ... but when you treat me like crap and cost me big money and do not appreciate that you have my rent for sure without fail three months at a time and I live over here in my private little world where not even the neighbors hear me and rarely even see me ... Then is when we have a REAL problem !! Second Post - June 14 2008 - I have returned to edit to add that the third floor tennant here in my building started a grease fire and tried to put it out with a dry towel which caught on fire and then threw water on the fire and of course it flamed bigger so they grabbed the sprayer from the sink to add even more water and while doing so broke the main which flooded everyone beneath them and all we can do is be thankful he finally got the fire out by using a moist towel and flooded us out rather than burn us out. We were up all night as emergency maintenance could do nothing, not even use a wet vac to begin getting the heavy water from above us up so that we could stop being drowned, and we had to wait for the carpet cleaners to arrive an hour or so later. Some kids from Plantation Key across the street, also owned by Brandon Park Associates, shot a bb-gun at our sliding glass door so we had to call the sheriff out and the sheriff and my husband, while talking, constantly picked up nails outside the front of our apartment that keep washing out ever since I spent the two hours cleaning up after the contracted work being done over here to fix the front of the falling down building of which is already beginning to crack and pieces continue to fall all over my patio because they failed to put back the down spout that is to catch water from the roof keeping it from going down the front of the building. And another thing ... the mentioning above in regards to being towed when parking in a fashion of which we were told was ok to park beside our bike ... Since our towing ordeal, the manager has parked closer to our bike than we have ever thought to park, other tennants too, and there are always vehicles double parked all over this place ... and not towed. One of the maintenance people had three vehicles parked here of which one was inoperable with no tag, the other appeared inoperable and had expired tag, never moved, the third one that is operable always parked up on the grass edge ... none towed and the maintenance guy threatened to beat my husbands azz, azz not being the word used but very similiar, for taking pictures of it all. Our neighbors across the hall have had an air conditioning problem for a very long time and one maintenance guy that was there came out the door grumbling that he did not have time for this chit ... chit not bein the word used but very similiar. We now have called maintenance for an electrical outlet that is putting out sparks and maintenance arrives to fix our 'leak' ... so still we have an outlet we now do not have anything plugged in to and hoping that is ok. Also the fire box outside constantly beeps with light indicating system error of which no one will fix. The fire martial was here this past February and at the time the fire box did not work and it was to be fixed and it has in fact been not working for over six months prior to the Fire Martials inspection. This is scarey when knowing the buildings beside us have had two fires since we moved to this place and one of the fires burning out the top two floors. I am back here now on Tuesday, June 17, 2008 to say a little more on the electrical outlet issue. We called maintenance in the wee hours of Saturday morning and as I have said they did come at 10:30am to fix our 'leak'. I called and left a message to make sure someone came back to see what is going on here with this electrical outlet. I called again on Monday to remind them I have an electrical problem over here. I have called the main office and the maintenance office on Saturday, Monday and today, Tuesday. The only thing I am left to do is to have the Fire Martial and perhaps code and zoning to come out here and at least inspect this to make sure it is even safe that I am in this apartment. I am scared to leave the apartment and scared to death to be in here because I have no idea what is wrong with their electricals. I have seen fires start from just what I am seeing taking place with this electrical outlet. We got a noticed stating that the painters will be here to do our building from July 1st thru the 12th and for us to have all of our items off of our patio. As usual the notice is inaccurate as the painters are here today, June 17th, spraying down my patio and everything on it and globs of this and that getting all over my belongings and yes I opened the door and put them to an immediate hault and yes I did pitch quite a fit as I am at my wits end with this place, and I brought all of my belongings inside this apartment. I did apologize to the painters for my anger and I did inform them it is this stinking place I live at that has me so upset and I know it is not their fault but the fault of our sorry management. I have someone scheduled to pick up my patio items this coming weekend to take them to their shed and now I have to have all of this mess inside of the apartment until then. As I have said, this place has no respect for your place or your belongings. And to add ... there is far more wrong with this place than a coat of paint can cover up. ( The paint is ugly to boot ) Back later today now, Tuesday, June 17th - Maintenance finally showed up, first going to a wrong electrical outlet. I escorted them to the one that is arching. One maintenance guy said, "Ma'am this outlet works." I said, "yeah it works but it was arching and my computer shutting down." They replaced the outlet but at this time I do not feel safe until the wiring is inspected and I can be sure that it was only the outlet as the culprit. Prior to maintenance finally arriving, I already had contacted the Fire Martial, who contacted Code Enforcement, who will be out within six to eight days to inspect the situation. I will be able to feel somewhat safe once someone with proper knowledge has inspected the wiring here and until then I am a nervous wreck. There is much more to say that goes on here and we have decided it's a hassle to bother with court just to get out of here and we do have money in the bank that is supposed to be there for if in case another natural disaster strikes because we did learn the hard way that in such cases there will be no one to help but to help yourself but instead it will have to be used in order to get out of this disaster we moved into after the natural disaster that caused us to have to move into anything that was available. We will give 30 day notice when our lease renewal is near and that will cost us some 3500 to 4000 to move being as we may end up paying rent here for a month or two while paying rent elsewhere for a month or two and having all deposits needed and all because of the lease and not being able to just get the heck out of this place. It is a shame that every dime we do have that is to take us through any future disasters has to be put into getting out of this hell hole. These places are too much more protected with their lease than we are as tennants and it is a big hassle just to try to get out of a hole lived in so be very careful, if you have time to properly search for a place to live, be sure to do so. It is shear misery having to live in a place that you detest and it does begin to make your life miserable and affect your mental well being as I have fallen into extreme deep depression in my having to live here due to it being hard to move when under a lease, along with living in constant fear that this place could burn down any minute or some crackhead could beat my head in for any money they might think they could get to spend on their habit. We moved here under dire circumstances due to hurricane disaster and with that the disaster has never ended.

Recommended: NO Overall Rating

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