I lived in Village Green Apartments for a year until the place was consumed by a fire. I read the majority of the previous posts, disagreed with some and agreed with some others. Honestly, before the fire I was never a big fan of the apartments. The insulation was terrible, my roomate and I lived uncomforably to try and keep down the electricity bill. When I first moved in, our apartment was broken into, the door was crow-bared into breaking the doorframe and caused the lock not to function properly and constantly had to keep pushing the doorknob back into place. Before that incident, my roomate (who had lived in the apartment for a year previous to when I moved in) informed me that the heating and air was extremely inefficient and being college kids we tried to cut down on expenses as much as possible. When the maintenence guy came out to fix it he screwed in 2 screws the keep the doorknob in tact and then left. Air would constantly rush into the apartment causing our electric to be outstanding. In a 2 week period in September we ran the air conditioner on 72, left in on auto where it was never 'cool' in the place, but far more comfortable than the stagnent hot air outside. Please understand, the air conditioner was completely turned 'off' the rest of the time. A $283 electric bill followed. The problem was the unit never cut off when it got to the automatic temperature because the constant outside flow of air. Needless to say, we never used the air conditioner anymore. In the winter, we held off on trying to use the heat until the beginning of December. We ran it on 75 for approximately a week and a half, then when the semester was over we headed home for the holidays. What I'm trying to say is we weren't even occupying the apartment for 2/3rds of the month of December and came back to a $219.43 bill. No dishwasher, no washing machine or dryer. Also to try and cut down on costs we would even shower on campus to save on hot water.
When we returned from winter break, we tried everything we could not to turn on the heater, would use candles instead of lights, tried every trick in the book. We went numerous times to Jeanne Wright, the manager, and told her how uncomfortable it was living like that and we asked repeatedly if there was anything that could be done. Nothing was ever done, and she said $250 was a normal power bill for an apartment our size. She never would acknowledge the effort we put in to keep a low bill.
There was another instance where we went to her because we could smell gas in our apartment. We were unsure if it had anything to do with our electric bill, but the manager said that it wasn't gas we were smelling...' You know what Jeanna Wright advised us to do' "Just don't strike a match..." Well, it took 5 buisness days for a maitnence guy to come check out our problem and said that it wasn't gas. We never figured out what the smell was, but had several other people including a contractor, agree that it definitly did smell like a gas leak.
When the fire acturally happend, the apartment complex notified my roomate and I about 3 hours afterwards. When we finally got to the leasing office, the options we were faced with was either get pro-rated the remaining 2 weeks of our rent back because the fire occured on the 15th approx $240 and get the security deposit back which was about the same amount, or stay in the identical building directly accross from our burnt apartment, with no furniture, no belongings and no posessions and would pick up on the lease just how it was. It was hard for me to imagine waking up every day looking directly at the charred remains and I thought it was completely fair to ask if there was going to be any fire precautions made to the apartment she wanted to put us in, obviously because my roomate and I just lost everyhting we owned in the fire. She made made many tasteless comments such as "Psh, is that the kind of questions you ask everywhere you're going to look for a place'" I asked her to make a copy of the lease so I could look over it, ask my lawyer and parents what they advised would be the best option and without blinking an eye she smiled and said "Please, get all the lawyers you want I don't care." My roomate and I left, came back and told her we did not want to stay in any of her apartments because we were worried about safety and were completely turned off by her insensitivity to the whole situation. She also thought it would be funny when she was looking over our lease filling out paperwork she was going through the description of the apartment, white walls, no dishwasher, turning blinds, then pokes the girl standing next to her with her elbow and laughingly says "Ha, look what color the carpet was...burnt tan" Needless to say I could not find the humor in a couple of college students who have been working all year, and enrolled in summer school losing everyhting they own in a fire. Unfortunately, our only mailbox key was in the apartment at the time of the fire and we had no way to check our mail. When our check with our pro-rated check, and security deposit came in she said that we could not get the check until we turned in the key. I explained to her that a change of address form for USPS takes 5-7 days to clear through the system so we may need to check it within that time but she refused. Needless to say, because we had lost everyhting and needed money for necessities we had to accept the check and give back the key.
After this whole situation it was completely life-changing. I never realized how traumatic a disaster such as a fire could effect someone so emotionally but it has. I'm currently enrolled in summer school scraping for a place to sleep night after night. The people at Village Green have been absolutely no help to either me or my roomate. One further note is that we are also expected to pay $80 for the damaged door from the robbery. After the apartments are burnt to the ground...

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/31/2009
I am absolutely appalled by the way this manager handled this situation! If I had a child attending East Carolina, this would not be a place of any interest to me! I wonder if Mr. Fountain has any idea this employee is so unprofessional? He certainly didn't succeed in the business world with insensitive and callous employees like this....did he? Wonder if she has been faced with any devastating occurences in her life?! These students deserve better than this! Sounds like the favorite part of her job is pay day and the days that she gets the opportunity to belittle, degrade and take absolute joy in being a condescending witch to college students dealing with losing all of their earthly possessions. It will be interesting to hear if anything further comes out of this. I sincerely hope that Mr. Fountain does not support this kind of treatment of young people trying to better themselves!
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/06/2009
ATTENTION WHINING HILLBILLIES OF GREENVILLE ~ cut your losses, act like grown ups and move on. Stop relying on the office staff to take care of your business. Keep in mind, it was the neglegence of an ignorant tenant that started this fire! You people would never make it in a big city like DC, which is why you are stuck in the hills of a little town called Greenville, crying like little brats. I visited your city and this apartment complex only to discover that the students are trashy crybabies that spend most of thier time at Sonic and/or making their own rules/regulations. GET OVER IT, ACT LIKE ADULTS. If you smell gas, call your gas company and demand they bring a rep out to investigate. If you can't get into your mailbox, call the post office. Why are you crying "Mommy" to the management? You live in an apartment, not a 5 star mansion. Stop acting like the world owes you when something goes wrong. You people are the trash we are trying to clean up in this world. What is ECU teaching you - cry until you get your way? Again, stop by DC sometime and try your complaints here. I would love to see your reaction to big city life. GROW UP!!
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/08/2009
This person seems like an insensitive unhappy individual. My daughter lived at Village Green for more than two years in the building that was destroyed by fire. She also had several unpleasant experiences with management there. I assure you that there are many tenants at this apartment complex and others in Greenville who are hard working students trying to succeed in life. They don't have to move to DC to experience life. Shame on you for your insensitive and quite ignorant remarks!
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/08/2009
What an unlikely coincidence! I remember hearing similar sentiments from the Village Green Property Manager while visiting the main office. It even sounds like you are both from D.C. I know who you really are, but I will let everyone else draw their own conclusions as to your identity. It's not much of a mystery, after all. It's interesting you found most students here to be trashy crybabies. I have never lived anywhere else in Greenville where management did such a poor job and had so many unhappy tenants. Here is a crazy idea - maybe it isn't a problem with the tenants at all! Outrageous, I know. Still, worth consideration. Whether the fire was due to a negligent tenant or not, it is the management's duty to treat all of the residents with sensitivity and respect. This is especially true after such a traumatizing event. I realize this is a difficult job for Village Green's Property Manager, seeing as she openly loathes Greenville and its residents. I suppose us "hillbillies of Greenville" just can't measure up to the D.C. folk she is used to. If people in D.C. are so much better, please, return to D.C. You will not be missed. Perhaps Village Green's Property Manager couldn't cut it in D.C. and that is why she ended up in the hills (to which hills were you referring, by the way?) of a little town called Greenville. I do not believe the original poster was acting like the world owes her because something went wrong. Her apartment has burned down and she would like to be able to check her mail for the next week. I am not seeing the problem here. In addition, asking her and her roommate to pay for a damaged door after the entire building has been condemned is beyond ridiculous. Village Green is really crossing a line with that demand. If they have been living with a damaged door then I am sure that it is in good enough condition to secure the property to prevent people from easily walking in. There is no way to legitimize asking those two tenants to pay for damages from a robbery for an apartment that will not be getting a door replacement with or without that $80. Gee, don't forget to ask them to pay for carpet replacement. There must be a lot of scorch marks on it that weren't there before. As students, we are often young and without a lot of money or experience, which can make it easy to take advantage of us. That does not, however, make it right. For two years I lived in one of the units that burned down. I moved because of how unpleasant it became to go into the office for anything after Jeanne Wright took over. It is clear that nothing has changed in the year and a half that I have been gone. I would urge anyone considering moving into a unit at Village Green or Eastbrook to look elsewhere. I have had much more positive experiences everywhere else I have lived. Maybe if enough of us write letters to the property owner he will reevaluate the performance of Ms. Wright and his decision to make her the representative of his properties in Greenville.
From: Anonymous	Date: 06/19/2009
lol once again that looney property manager has taken to attacking her own residents on this site. Maybe Mr. Fountain should give her more work to do b/c clearly she has A LOT of time on her hands.Give it up Ms. Wright no one likes you here or probably in DC either (why else would u be here instead of your precious DC) you are a miserable,mean,spiteful crazy person who probably should have a job in a dark room with no human beings around. and ps you have cussed and fussed at me for the last time im OUTA HERE BECAUSE OF U!!!!!!!!!!!!! And i will be sending Mr. Fountain a letter as well.

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