For your prompt attention to my requests to address the personal attacks against me (a former tenant) and my family here, by current tenants at Frogtown Family Lofts. You are doing a fantastic job moderating this website!

While living at FFL, we endured a lot of bullying and harassment problems from current tenants still living there. So when we moved out in Nov 2007, we set the email monitoring option on this website to notify us when the site changed.

Last week, we began receiving multiple email notifications that "new reviews" or "responses to our reviews" were being posted.

Apparently, our mistrust of those tenants and the property management company is still well placed. They continue to be, a year and half later, angry, embittered, and vengeful. Maybe they are feeling powerless about their lives at Frogtown Family Lofts, so strike out here at what they thought would make an easy target for their still seething rage. Considering how long it has been since we moved from this property, it is clear who has lingering rage and anger issues here--the people who started this whole ugly thing up again, which includes the current tenants at Frogtown, and a current employee of it's property management company, Property Solutions.


Knowing hindsight is as subjective and tentative as our perceptions are at the time original events actually occured, we try to always appreciate honest differences in peoples' perceptions of 'what really happened'. Perceptions of past events change over time. We've mellowed a lot since we got out of Frogtown, and are content and deeply grateful for our current apartment home & property management.

But at the time we moved out of Frogtown in the wake of the flooding there, we were--as were all the flood victims--alternately angry, anxious, frustrated, exhausted. But we've long since moved on from all that. So we can't quite wrap our heads around why the current tenants and property managers haven't.

When we saw what was going on, we contacted the ApartmentRatings.com staff, and they dealt with the problem promptly. We are deeply grateful to them for it, and for the commitment they've shown to providing a high quality apartment review service. They have managed this little FFL dust up very well, from our perspective. They haven't removed all the angry and ugly lies current tenants have written about us. The worst of what is being said, from our perspective, is our daughter never was a victim of sexual harassement at Frogtown. Considering the sources of those denials, it is just the sort of negative behavior we expect from them. But that doesn't lessen the pain for our daughter, despite us reassuring her the denial of the abusive behavior we all experienced while we lived there was never about us and what we did. Abusers always deny any abuse ever took place.


We were mercilessly harassed and bullied at Frogtown by the same tenants that began swarming into this website in the last two weeks, apparently at the urging of the property management company. An email from the site manager posted in another review here (see the Management Abuse review), confirmed our worst fears.

We felt very vulnerable and beaten down at the time we moved out of FFL. Not only did we harbor legitimate fears for our personal safety from retaliatory physical attacks upon us and our pets by the problem tenants harassing us. We also knew we couldn't trust what tenants might say about us online for writing our review here in Oct 2007. At the time that review here was written, we were still living at FFL.

We posted that review then because, even though we had much to fear from the bully clique tenants at the time, we didn't want any future tenants to suffer our miserable fate at FFL. We knew there would be a high vacancy rate after the flood, because we weren't the only tenants to move out at the time.

We felt a strong sense of duty to fellow artists in the TC arts community OUTSIDE FFL, to share our experiences living there. The ability to do that is an important part of the service ApartmentRatings.com provides for people like us, who want to help prospective renters like you, gentle reader of this review, sort the wheat from the chaff regarding our potential future homes.

The horrific bullying and harassment we endured before we got out of that place reminded us of the short story by Shirley Jackson called "The Lottery", where the neighbors stone the household that draws the short straw at the end, in a terrifying example of forced conformity with "community traditions".

That this bully clique is still trying to harass us at this website nearly a year and a half after we moved, should be yet another red flag for prospective renters. One of many big time caveat emptors for Frogtown.

I've now received confirmation from Apartment Ratings staff, they investigated 2 more posting violations from abuse complaints I filed, and took care them. I've lost track of exactly how many abuse complaints were filed against the current tenants spewing their hate against us here in the last week & a half. There is still one current tenant bully spreading malicious gossip about us here, threatening to bring in her posse, etc. But life is too short and sweet to focus on the current tenants' bitter ugliness.

So, here is an updated review from a "looking back" perspective, now that we've been out of FFL awhile.

PROSPECTIVE TENANTS: MAKE SURE YOU ASK ABOUT FLOOD DAMAGES BEFORE YOU MOVE IN. If you ask the property management company about flooding problems at Frogtown, they are supposed to tell you the truth: no abatement of the causes of the flooding has been done, and there are no plans to do so by the property owners. The lower units will flood again at any time, and your personal property damages will NOT be covered unless you have renters insurance with an additional flood rider.

You will likely be required to remain living in the flooded unit until they get around to fixing it--with mold, torn out walls & flooring, construction fans running 24/7--in other words, nightmare living conditions, while waiting for your unit to be repaired. You will be required to do all the flood clean up to your unit yourself. You will likely be required to move ALL your personal belongings, a number of times, before finally landing with all your belongings in a rehabbed unit. You may be forced to pay the exorbitant gouging fee ($500 last we knew) to move to an upper level unit, if you don't want to remain living in the lower level units that will keep flooding again and again and again.

We now live in another apartment complex on St Paul's District del Sol--the west side. We have great property management here, a healthy community of neighbors, and a much safer neighborhood, despite the west side's reputation as being less than desirable due to poverty and gang activity, especially in the mainstream press.

When one of us recently was out of work for medical reasons, our landlord reduced our rent for two months by $275/mo, until the less expensive and smaller unit we wanted to move to became available. We were not charged a dime for moving from one unit to the other, and this complex has two buildings.

At Frogtown you are charged an exorbitant gouging "fee" to move from one unit to another--if I recall correctly, it was $500 per move at the time of the flood. I can't remember if the property management company waived the gouging fee for flood victims or not--they fought it very, very hard at the time. They also were very threatening to those of us who moved out, claiming we would be reported for breaking our lease when asked to provide a housing reference, and to take us to court to collect the rent for the remainder of the lease period. Compare that treatment, to the treatment by our current landlord described above. That gives you a good idea of the difference between our former and current property management.

Also know this--the rent at Frogtown kept going up and up the whole time we lived there, while living conditions and property conditions kept going down and down. In fact, we moved there in July 2003, and our rent was raised in January 2004, six months into a one year lease! Rent was raised every year we lived there.

Tenants don't get renters credit living there either (that may have changed, as the status of the building changed after we moved out). The owner investors collect those tax benefits instead, by maintaining the sham "non-profit coop" and low income housing status of the building.

By contrast, where we are living now, the rent hasn't been raised since we moved here in Novemer 2007. There is absolutely no excuse for Frogtown Family Lofts sucking their tenants dry with rent gouging, fee gouging, etc.

Another thing property management and the tenant board won't tell you before you move in--and putting up with it is an invasion of your privacy, as well as a royal pain: you must endure annual "inspections" of your apt unit, so the property owners can continue to get their big fat property tax & low income housing tax credits--all at the tenants' expense.

It was a tremendous relief to get out of the high stress living environment at Frogtown Family Lofts. We were glad our kid was late teens when we moved there because socially, the young kid dynamic, during summer months especially, was like something out of Lord of the Flies.

We had a huge rock put through our front windows by tenants' kids. Only one parent came to us and asked if they could work with us to have their child make restitution, and actually changed the way they were parenting their kids as a result of it. When the mother of that kid asked us why we thought the kids picked our household to do it to, we told her flat out we knew we were targets of a couple of families' anger because we complained about their out of control behavior, and kids listen to and model their parents' behavior--in our case some very vicious gossip mongering, bullying, harassment, etc BY THE ADULTS. Whom, not incidentally, were the parents of the problem kids at Frogtown. And they haven't all moved out, because some of them are posting here as current tenants. Including those special rock throwing, bullying households.

Security was non-existent at FFL, despite the occasionally active & useless "tenant security committee". We actually had a tire stolen off one of our cars. Our daughter was accosted by a stranger in the courtyard parking lot after pulling in from work (she worked nights), and had to call us inside the apt to come out and rescue her. It was awful. A very unsafe place for young women. Another tenant was jumped and assaulted in the same parking lot coming in at night too. Cars were stolen. Our good neighbor to the east had their apartment broken into, ransacked and robbed--in broad daylight. It was the scariest place we ever lived, and we lived right on Powderhorn Park at the height of the crack wars.

We REALLY were disgusted by tenant against tenant bullying and crime at this property, as we had never experienced anything like it from our neighbors before. At a so-called "artist coop" no less. We aren't exactly virgin renters--we've been lifelong renters for 30 yrs. Some of the longer term tenants are there because apartment communities with good management wouldn't tolerate them and their kids. Hence, they'll tell you, they just LOVE IT at Frogtown. Caveat emptor.

Bullying, intimidation, harassment and terrorizing of communities can't happen without a lot of do nothing bystanders. At Frogtown, there are a lot of them who go along with all this dysfunction, in hopes of escaping being targeted by the adult bullies, their property getting vandalized or stolen by the kids, being ostracized by the cliques on the tenant board, etc.

We once came out of our unit to see one of the teen boys (the son of the then-coop board president, no less), LOUDLY trying to destroy a Little Tykes picnic table in the tot lot. We walked out to stop it, and were gobsmacked to see a member of the coop board sitting at the adult size picnic table right next to where this was happening! That board member didn't say or do anything to stop this blatant act of vandalism going on in his face--again, in broad daylight.

Sadly, this sort of "torment and bully the neighbors we don't like" was par for the course when we lived there. A long term tenant once told me they had found a dead bird in their mailbox. Sweet.

We moved to Frogtown when the place was half empty in 2003. We were promised all kinds of things by a desperate management company, just to get us to move in. They flat out lied about a lot of it.

But Frogtown has had problems maintaining full occupancy for years, and often doesn't require residents to be professional artists at all. So there isn't a strong professional artist community there like you see at the many other artist buildings and neighborhoods in the Twin Cities now. They don't even allow student artists from schools like McNally Smith School of Music and College of Visual Arts (both in the neighborhood) to live there. Go figure.

Especially when they are once again having vacancy and turnover issues, as they did when we moved there in 2003. They don't want student artists as tenants, yet have high turnover and persistent vacancy problems. Maybe it is time to look at the perpetual crop of problem tenants, instead of demonizing student artists as security and management risks. In our experience living at FFL, the students weren't the major problem, the older adults were. The biggest security and management problem at FFL is that Property Solutions, the property management company, doesn't do squat to deal with problem tenants, period.

The vacancy and turnover problem has been a persistent problem for years--long before any online apartment reviews appeared. So this website's reviews are NOT the cause of the current vacancy problems at Frogtown. People can go there, meet the property management people, the caretakers, the current tenants, and see for themselves and judge the place, as they should.

What is hurting FFL today is competition from better managed, more affordable properties and artist communities that offer superior artist live/work options and property amenities. FFL has serious property management and absentee owner problems. It is rundown, poorly maintained, poorly managed, and an expensive rip off considering the lack of standard amenities for the price, and for the neighborhood it is in. And they have the guts to charge tenants an extra rip off gouger's fee if you don't do your community service time to perform maintenance so the property management company doesn't have to pay someone to do it. What a privlege it is to pay twice at FFL.

So if you, dear prospective Frogtown tenant, have conflicts with any of the problem tenants at Frogtown, be forewarned your life at Frogtown will, more likely than not, become a living hell. The same bullying community dynamic in play when we moved out in November 2007, appears to be alive and well at Frogtown in May 2009.

We stood up to the bullying at Frogtown the whole time we lived there, but paid a very high price for doing so. As is obvious, some current tenants would still like to see us pay a price for standing up to them, but we are now happily and contentedly living our west side lives, well beyond their bullying reach. Except this online thing, which seems to be in good hands with this website's administrators.

There is a significant difference between authentic healthy apartment communities, and dysfunctional and unhealthy apartment communities. Just as there is between well run, democratically governed coop apartment communities and...Frogtown Family Lofts. So don't be fooled by the lovely courtyard landscaping and the swooning "artist coop community" marketing.

There are some decent people, decent artists, and good parents who live there, who don't let their kids run with the little wolf pack, and only allow their kids in the courtyard when they are with them. We did have some nice neighbors there, especially one of our next door neighbors. They lived there the whole time we were there, and moved just before the flooding. It would be simplistic to say "everyone and everything was bad." It wasn't.

But what was bad, became increasingly intolerable. We originally moved to Frogtown knowing the coop was going to try and purchase the building, and allow residents to buy their units. We hung on a long time, ate a lot of s**t, all in hopes that once the purchase went through (the deal fell apart in Aug 2007), the best tenants would buy in, the worst would be forced out by the change, and the coop governance model completely reworked. It never happened.

Over the years, we've been blessed with good neighbors nearly everywhere we lived. Frogtown Family Lofts was the one exception.

They say living well is the best revenge. We certainly got ours in spades, once we moved out of Frogtown. Our place on the west side isn't paradise by any means. It just seems like it by comparison to Frogtown Family Lofts.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/27/2009
Wow. I don't really know where to begin. I am one of those professional artists who lives here, and my experiences have been RADICALLY different from yours. First of all, let's talk about the Art Crawl. I've been in a bunch of buildings that have done Art Crawls and I stopped participating years ago because I personally find it worthless and got sick of strangers poking around my space. But that's also primarily because I don't have a product per se that I want to sell (at least one that's marketable to the average person that wanders in off the street). Everybody is different, but I'm not interested in participating in an art crawl, I prefer to schedule appointments with those individuals I'd like to see my work. Our building is too far away from the epicenter of the downtown St.Paul art crawl to be very effective anyhow... But other artists who do sell at Art Crawls might be better advised either to rent closer to the hub or schedule their own. My point being is that art crawls don't work for everybody. As for the charge about the young woman harassed by residents: It is being denied because it's appears that it's simply not true. Really. I'm female, and wouldn't tolerate any harassment of female neighbors and not a parent of any teenage boy that I'm trying to defend. Evidence strongly suggests that said incident didn't happen. The parents of this adult girl were angry with the building (chronic crazy making problem creators) and knew an allegation of this kind on an internet site after they moved out would create this kind of angry backlash. Based on your description of when you lived here, you must have been here when I was. And the description of your situation just doesn't ring a bell. Parent of an elementary age child who moved out because of bullying? No one who moved out during the time frame you cite even had children. So I'm kind of wondering if your angry description of your experience isn't so real after all. This building IS well maintained. The owners bent over backwards to renovate our lower level spaces after the flood. I still think it's a great place to live and work. Ease off on the angry internet diatribes, would ya? It's so unproductive. If you are actually an artist, as you profess, maybe just spend more time working in the studio and less time maligning an otherwise nice studio building. You mention you are in NE now- what building? Can't imagine you found a live/work building over there...
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/05/2009
The litterbox is all yours, Frogtown tenants.
From: ljmarkie	Date: 06/19/2009
And,....Thank you for your prompt attention to our request also...as many posts and responses of this reviewer have also been removed and/or altered. For reference, "The Site may provide you and other users an opportunity to submit, post, display, transmit and/or exchange information, ideas, opinions, photographs, images, video, creative works or other information, messages, transmissions or material to us, the Site or others ("Post" or "Postings")" .....We have a right to our opinions, thoughts, and feelings too you know. And w also have a right to attempt to refute any information posted that is malicious and/or fictitious. I would think that current resident testimony just might be more valuable than experiences of those who lived here several years ago.....especially when those people (this reviewer) happened to leave the community right before they were asked to stand before a "jury of peers" here after verbally and physically attacking and assaulting other members of this community. That's why they left, NOT because of the flood, but because they were denied a transfer due to their not being a "members in good standing here" due to the chronic behavior problems. OK first claim... "What followed that flood was a nightmare. It will happen again, at any time, because the owners and property managers claim nothing can be done about it. Translation: they aren't willing to spend any money on the property to prevent the damages that have ocured 3 times since the building opened as a residential property in the early 1990s This statement is false. There have only been two floods here since the buildings opening. Management/Owners DID do something about the flood issue here.As a matter of fact, they hired a contractor to come out and investigate the cause of the flood. And, he did. It was determined that, it wasn't a building issue, but a city storm drain issue. That person was then hired by the city to help fix the problem. And, so, The city did come and fix the problem and revamp the entire neighborhoods storm drain system the following spring. As to the insinuation that the flood was handled badly, Management and owners got everyone affected by the flood PODs and in some cases two of them. They hired movers to come out and help us pack and move our belongings to other available units while our units were completely rehabbed. We all got rent and utilities credits. The floors and walls were redone or replaced etc... Now, this statement: "they fought it very, very hard at the time. They also were very threatening to those of us who moved out, claiming we would be reported for breaking our lease when asked to provide a housing reference, and to take us to court to collect the rent for the remainder of the lease period." is also false. Everyone, if they so chose, was let out of their lease, and those that wanted to move and were deemed, "members in good standing" here, were waived the $500.00 transfer fee. And what is not said is that the fee, actually is/goes towards your deposit in the next unit. It is true that at the time this reviewer was here, there was, "a handful of irresponsible parents who used the courtyard and common spaces as babysitters, let their kids run unsupervised, left toys and garbage all over the place, were disrespectful of everyone, bullying by certain kids was out of control. Those families have moved on. The current community is nothing like described as a matter of fact, they were gone even before this reviewer was. This statement: "amenities we never had at Frogtown including DW, laundry, air condo, double garage AND off street parking, cable, dish, and internet options," is somewhat misleading. There are washer dryer hookups in many of the units, and if you want them installed you are permitted to do so. I have them in my unit. I also have a dishwasher installed. you can do that to. I am also on the internet and digital cable with no problems in my unit as I write this and so was this reviewer...although they were, "internet sharing when they were here and so the connection was sometimes faulty. They could have paid for it outright themselves and not had that problem. There are also some residents here with Direct TV...If you come by, you can see the dishes. This reviewer also had several air conditioners while they were here. There are two laundry rooms here and off street parking. And then this statement, "This is the sort of neighborhood community we were seeking, but never found at Frogtown."this reviewer never found this here because she never let herself. She was always segregating and separating herself from this community by way of blocking the public sidewalks on purpose with her patio furniture even though, I and another resident were disabled, one has MS and I was in a horrible accident before they left here and I had to get one of the other neighbors to come and get my laundry for me becuase the sidewalk was always blocked and I/we couldn't get through it or up the stairs or ramp by ourselves. It was really frustrating and sad that she continued to do this even after countless requests by me and management to stop blocking the public access walk adjacent to our patio spaces. And, I don't know how this person can say what the courtyard was like. They built a 6' tall wall all the way around themselves to separate them from the rest of the community as well as from having to see and listen to the kids and families playing in the courtyard, and in the playground that is in the courtyard. I mean, what did they think was going to happen? There's a "PLAYground" there...are the kids NOT supposed to play??? Yes, two kids were on their patio harassing their cat that was in the window. Yes they threw a rock at the window and it did break. This event was unfortunate. And, one parent did deal with the situation appropriately. It is also unfortunate that they didn't both deal with it. But, Then there's this, "Whom, not incidentally, were the parents of the problem kids at Frogtown. And they haven't all moved out, because some of them are posting here as current tennants, including those special rock throwing, bullying households...", None of the people or families involved in the "rock throwing" have posted or responded here. This is a lie. Next I'll tackle this statement, "Security was a non-existent nightmare at FFL, despite the well intentioned but essentially useless "tenant security committee" and their occasional patrols. We actually had a tire stolen off one of our cars." There was no security committee when their tire was stolen. It didn't get fully operational until after this reviewer was gone. It is now though, and is effective and working with our greater neighborhood watch. As to this statement, "Our daughter was accosted by a stranger in the courtyard parking lot after pulling in from work (she worked nights), and had to call us inside the apt to come out and rescue her." If this really happened, the community here NEVER was aware of this. It wasn't reported to anyone. And, if it did happen, it was unfortunate and I for one am grateful that she wasn't injured. This next statement actually did happen as well, three years ago, also PRE security committee, "Another tenant was jumped and assaulted in the same parking lot coming in at night too. Although, that person, wasn't assaulted, but was "held up" for money and keys. Cars were stolen. But, since the security committee has gotten to full force and is working with this neighborhood's "watch" things have calmed down drastically from this reviewers recollection. These next statements are also false and/or incorrect. "Some of the longer term tenants are there because apartment communities with good management wouldn't tolerate them and their kids. Hence, they'll tell you, they just LOVE IT at Frogtown." This is completely made up and/or exaggerated. Of course there were problems and issues between kids and adults at times. But this exaggeration is just plain rediculous. there was nothing more than than the normal/expected kinds of things you'll find in every community. And when they occured they were most often dealt with and handled in an appropriate and timely manner, with the only exception being this reviewer who was most often, threatening, abusive, intolerant, intimidating, to adults and children. "Bullying, intimidation, harassment and terrorizing of communities can't happen without a lot of do nothing bystanders." And, "At Frogtown, there are a lot of them who go along with all this dysfunction, in hopes of escaping being targeted by the adult bullies, their property getting vandalized or stolen by the kids, being ostracized by the cliques on the tenant board, etc." Boy, all I can say about this is that it's really rediculous, and fictitious. Everything being said here is a lie, and, is everything that this reviewer engaged in while she was here. I'm sure that there are still written documents full of descriptions of and complaints about this reviewers monstrosities while living here from nearly every household that was here when this reviewer was. Now, this is rather funny actually..."We once came out of our unit to see one of the teen boys (the son of the then-coop board president, no less), LOUDLY trying to destroy a Little Tykes picnic table in the tot lot. We walked out to stop it, and were gobsmacked to see a member of the coop board sitting at the adult size picnic table right next to where this was happening! That board member didn't say or do anything to stop this blatant act of vandalism going on in his face--again, in broad daylight." 1. The co-op board president, of 3 terms of two years each, who was mentioned here, was a single woman with NO children. The current board president is also a single woman with NO children. 2. My son and couple of other kids, DID tear appart a "little tykes" picnic table...they were asked to break it down so it could be thrown away. It was garbage. Our older boys do a lot of this kind of work for the community and for members. 3. This incident did NOT happen inside the playground, but on the platform outside of it. This reviewer is and has continually brought up the fact that she is being harassed here. While we are paying close attention to what is being said here, by way of only stating factual information and corrections that can be verified and checked, this reviewer is also continually "harassing" new and current tenants by lieing, and posting mean, snotty, derogatory statements to their postings EVERY time there is one. Talk about "pot calling kettle" then there's this statement..."But Frogtown has had problems maintaining full occupancy for years, and often doesn't require residents to be professional artists at all. So there isn't a strong professional artist community there like you see at the many other artist buildings and neighborhoods in the Twin Cities now. They don't even allow student artists from schools like McNally Smith School of Music and College of Visual Arts." Yes there have been, on occasion, substantial vacancies at times. After the flood was no exception...it was a difficult time everyone involved and/or affected by it. However, we don't just let non- artists move in here, only after a certain time frame has passed with a certain number of vacancies, do we elect to waive the artist criteria. And, there are many "students" and student artists who live here. I am one of them. The only policy we have, which is not even OUR policy but federal and tax regulations, a household cannot be made up of entirely full time students. EVERY "low income" property has this particular problem. Believe me, If we could, we would have NO problem with renting to students. Equally important to mention here is that MOST of the residents who live here and move out, are buying houses. The issue of affordable rents here this reviewer keeps mentioning, are not quite true either. Most of the residents who move, do so after purchasing a home. They must be able to save quite a bit of money while they're here.? As to vacancies, we have three. Out of 36. As to this statment..."It is rundown, poorly maintained, poorly managed, and an expensive rip off considering the lack of standard amenities for the price, and for the neighborhood it is in. And they have the guts to charge tenants an extra rip off gouger's fee if you don't do your community service time to perform maintenance so the property management company doesn't have to pay someone to do it." T his is what a co-operative community is like... EVERY co-operative has a standard "participation" policy and fine for non participation. And that's what connects the community as a whole. WE are responsible for our community. We garden, pick up litter when there is litter, we help turn over units etc...... This to save us money by not having to pay out by hiring contractors to it. We are not forced to do it. We CHOOSE to garden, and mow the grass, vacuum the hallways, and clean up laundry rooms etc.... We do NOT do routine maintance or anything that could be potentially dangerous. That kind of work and/or other hard, laborious jobs, or jobs that require certain skills are hired out. And, the fine money collected from non-participators, is given to us and WE, the community and the committee,s get to decide how to spend that money. Well, I think you can pretty much get the "clear" picture. IF you're interested in this space at all, and if you do come here, please take the time to get ALL the facts. Make sure that you ask the property manager to produce the factual information and verification regarding the statements and corrections posted here. Thank you.

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