the absolute worst management/business practices in Ann Arbor

ahh...where to begin' my roommate and i were students at the U and decided to stay close to campus during our year off. after looking at several places, woodbury looked particularly intising--we had a great looking apartment, fireplace, high ceilings, overall a great place, and we got a discounted deal on rent.

BEWARE OF THEIR "DEALS"...they'll tell you that they can hook up a deal where you get 1-2 months free and give you the option of dividing that among your months or taking a random 2 months for free, then they'll breeze over it when you're signing it on the lease, but if you READ IT CAREFULLY (which many people i know that lived here didn't), this is actually INSURANCE for them. if, in their eyes, you do not complete the FULL LEASE, meaning you could have a $50 late charge or some other miscellaneous bs reason, they can (and will) take you to court and sue you for the amount they discounted, usually in excess of $2000 not including court costs. if you try to not pay the last month's rent and tell them to keep the security deposit, they'll keep quiet and pretend like everything's all good...then WHAM, lawsuit.

anyway...we didn't notice this and we signed the lease...and after setting up a move in date at the beginning of the month (they refused an aug-aug or a sept-aug lease, we were talked into signing a sept-sept, which they knew would be terribly inconvenient), they tell us that we can't move in until the end of september...we asked them if they would refund us or pro-rate the days we weren't going to be able to occupy and they refused. after constantly hammering them and threatening to leave, they agreed to have our apartment ready close to the middle of the month (and still refused to deduct for the time we weren't able to reside there).

the first few months went ok, no real problems, but around november or december we got a SUMMONS from them saying they were going to take us to court for non-payment of rent along with a notice to vacate. we had sent out rent at the end of the previous month, and the idea that a letter from Ann Arbor to their office in Troy would take up to a week, as they tried to state, is a flat out lie. this notice was sent out on the FOURTH of the month (rent is due by the third). myself and others i know have NEVER dealt with such strictness from a landlord--most are pretty lenient, and most have grace periods of 5 days...regardless, we went in, told them the problem, and the woman i spoke with consulted this man, the then manager...he was a short fellow who resembled an angry leprechaun in a cheap suit who was in dire need of a good bath..."Little L", as we soon unaffectionately called him, informed us that they received it one day late (which was impossible since it was sent out on the 28th of the month before). he said he'd "let it go" because we get one sort of "freebie" in regards to late rent.

a few months later a member in my family had to have emergency surgery at the U hospital, so i was preoccupied with that and at home with my family as a result i didn't mail the rent in on time. i went to the office on the 5th, check in hand and explained the situation, and the leprechaun, refusing to step outside of his office cave, ranted and raved about how it didn't matter what happened, i had to pay the $50 late charge since i'd already used my "freebie" (again, because of them). i asked them if i was in a car accident and in a coma for 3 months, would they still attempt to take me to court (something they refused to respond directly to). needless to say, i was furious. we also got a subpoena and a late charge in july---they tried to do this again because of some mixup with the 4th of July holiday (mail wasn't delivered), but after screaming and yelling we got them to take that off.


they also sent an eviction notice to a foreign exchange student who lived there, who spoke little to no english. after going into the main office and showing them the notice, they tell her that if she just pays the court fees that the problem would go away, and if she didn't she'd go to court. she paid them, even though nothing was filed in court, and they pocketed her money. they have a habit of lying about filing court fees in order to trick you into paying an additional $200. ALWAYS check the 15th district court in michigan if they (or any) landlord claims they have filed something, CHECK by calling up.


then the water bill thing...everybody was angry about this, they all of the sudden started charging and we got ridiculous water bills--the first one we got was over $150 for the first few months of 2003, which is WAY too high... i did a little research and probing with AUM and the management, and they basically generate the bills by taking the ENTIRE water usage for all of woodbury and plug it into a formula that takes into account how many people you have living in your apartment...in other words, they divide up the entire water usage of the properties and don't use individual meters...so you could be gone for like 5 months and still have a huge water bill, because you're paying for your neighbors who might take long showers or baths, you're paying for them using the sprinklers, the pool, the jacuzzi, everything, and if there aren't as many people living there in certain months, your water bill gets HIGHER since it's divided among less people. they probably started this because A LOT of people moved out at the beginning of 2003 and they needed to make up for the non-renewals.

i don't know why people are ranting and raving about the maintenance crew...yeah they're responsive, but they often don't fix what they're called in for (we called in several times for leaks in the bathrooms and they got annoyed and stated that they didn't exist). a friend had a huge hornet's nest outside on the balcony--upon examination "the hive" was deeply entrenched into the roofing, and it seemed to grow larger and larger, despite their attempts to kill it (taking some measly thin wire attached to bug killer and squirting it around)....all three outside levels of where this guy lived were affected, so relaxing sit outs and barbecues were ruined by ducking and dodging angry hornets as if you're being shot at.

parking is a nightmare if you come home late at night, and during the winter they seem to shovel the walk when they feel like it, creating huge piles of snow that tower as high as 10 feet high sometimes.

i will say that the facilities are nice, they've got a great pool, good workout room, sauna, jacuzzi...but many times it'd take them a while to fix broken down exercise equipment, and the jacuzzi works less than half of the time.

oh! power outages! i almost forgot...this past year there were at least 3 (possibly more) power outages that only affected the Villas. no explanation was given, and they often lied and told people that all of ann arbor was affected (not true).

finally, towards the end of our lease we got a letter in the mail stating that if we did not respond to them within four days by leaving them a notice to vacate, they would "...assume that (we) intend to holdover (our) lease and that (we) understand (our) rental rate will be 150% of your current base rent.", meaning that instead of the $1000 we paid combined for each month, we'd be responsible for almost $2500 a month if we didn't go in and fill out this form and "confirm" that we were vacating within 4 days, something that had already been signed and confirmed in writing on the lease--we weren't in the apartment throughout much of august, so it was pure luck that i happened to come back and find this notice in time. nothing like this was even mentioned on the lease...just another way they try to gouge you (i'm betting if i didn't get it in time they'd just say 'tell you what, we'll just garnish your security deposit." and then write it off officially as damages)



so...only live here if you can send your rent in 10-15 days before it's due (just to be safe--this was actually recommended by a staff member), live here if you want to be gouged for money, enjoy being on the receiving end of rude demands and comments from the sleazy and downright rude staff, enjoy getting lied to and charged ridiculous amounts of late fees that you aren't responsible for...if you basically like being treated like a piece of dirt, then look no further, you've found paradise!

if not, look elsewhere. there are many other places in Ann Arbor that will treat with you in a courteous manner and have just as good or better apartments and facilities. The number of people here has seriously declined over the year, and now half of the parking spots are empty at night when they were full a year ago...they've lost a lot of business because of their practices, don't give them yours!

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