??Vintage Lake Apartments: Voted Best Property 2006??. The following letter is a plea for truth in advertising, a call to arms for the residents, and a cry for help to the powers that be. Let me begin with a short background of how I came to reside in Vintage Lake Apartments.

In September of 2000, against advice, my brother and I moved our mother into Vintage Lake Apartments. At the time we had hoped that this complex would be a safe, habitable, and even enjoyable residence for a retired woman living alone. Within weeks of moving in, her apartment would have standing water with every rainfall. After notifying the management at the time with absolutely no results, mold began growing from floor to some four feet up the walls, turning this residence into a sixth grade science project gone bad. After living with this for most of a year, new management was brought in and the offer was made (and accepted) to relocate my mother into another apartment.

In 2002, after hearing just a few of the complaints that my mother had regarding the property, my family and I returned to Oklahoma City. After visiting my mother for the first few days, it was decided that due to financial and health reasons, that she would be better cared for with a strong family presence. Upon the decision for my husband and I as well as our son to share the large three bedroom, two bath apartment with my mother, we notified management at that time, requesting that all tenants be added to the lease, in our attempt for all of the documentation to be in place. A pet deposit as well as many rent payments were paid by personal check from my checking account as we continued requesting to be put on a lease. Continued response from the yearly rotating management was that we should not worry about a lease, it was not important to be on a current lease, and that it was established that we were residents of the complex. This carried over into 2003 when my mother??s final lease expired. Again, several requests were made to renew a lease and to put all occupants on the lease, to no avail.

Over the course of the four years that my family ??lived?? in Vintage Lake Apartments, the following occurred with very little or no concern of management at the time:

?? Apartment flooding with every rainfall.
?? Apartment flooding with raw sewage several times each year.
?? Power outages for days at a time.
?? No hot water or heat for weeks at a time during winter months
?? No cold water or air conditioning for weeks at a time during summer months.
?? No hot water at times during the summer.
?? No cold water at times during the winter.
?? Numerous ceiling leaks from the apartment above ours with no repairs.
?? Vehicles being vandalized in the parking lots continuously.
?? Illegal activity being reported with no response.
?? Vermin (cockroaches and mice) infestation with no response from management.
?? Open sewage lines next to the apartment buildings
?? Raw sewage leaking through the asphalt in the parking lots.
?? Two ??decorative ponds?? choked by weeds, infested with snakes, filled with trash and breeding mosquitoes.

All of these issues were things that we saw first hand from June, 2002 until July, 2006 when current management advised us that my family were ??squatters?? due to the death of my mother June 22, 2006 and that we had no rights since we were never on a lease. Upon investigation we found that none of these issues were new, very shocking or limited to my family. According to Apartment Rating.com, these have been issues as far back as June of 2001 with numerous complaints as ours. (attachment #1)

May of 2005 there was an unfortunately poorly organized demonstration by residents voicing their complaints to which Brad Edwards of Channel 4 ??In Your Corner?? covered. Due to media coverage, management released the attached letter (attachment #2) addressing only one issue and pointing the finger at the city of Oklahoma City and ??unexpected mechanical difficulties??. Although it was encouraging to have media coverage and a ??speedy?? (less than two months) response from management, the norm carried on; the game of smoke and mirrors, shells and a pea, and ??if you can??t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with ????

I would love to be able to say that I have no ulterior motive in writing this letter, but that would not be true. My motivation is the hope that someone will take notice and stand up for those residents that feel trapped in a bad situation with no one on their side. My husband who was raised in the Oklahoma City area remembers when this complex was first built and is fond of letting people know what a wonderful area of Oklahoma City this was to live in. The surrounding neighborhood of the Village teems with well-maintained homes, quiet streets where couples can be seen walking in the early evenings, large churches and a fantastic school. This lovely neighborhood that seems like such a nice place to raise a young family is marred only by the existence of residential cancer called Vintage Lake Apartments. According to a banner mounted on the east side of what was once a tennis court, Vintage Lake was voted ??Best Property of Oklahoma City??. The responsible tenants of this apartment complex would be afraid to see the rest of the list.

User Responses
From: roman256	Date: 09/18/2006
I would like to know if you had that many problems being added to the lease why one you stayed there for so long and two you didn't just move, if you did not signed the lease you can not be held responsible for braking the lease. Makes no Sense to me at all that you stayed so long.

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