I actually really enjoyed my time here. The rent was extremely
reasonable and the apartment itself was nice. Any time I had a maintenance
issue, it was always taken care of promptly.

The problem came
after the move out. I had $695 in deposits including a security deposit
and 2 pet deposits. Of that, I only got $175 back and I left the
apartment in immaculate condition.

On the day I picked up my keys 2
years ago, the smell of pet urine when I walked in the door was completely
overwhelming. I immediately went back to the office and told them
about it. Since I wasn't actually moving in for a few days, they agreed to
clean the carpets again. So from the day I moved in, they knew that
there was previous damage to the carpets from pets.

As of March
2004, I only had one pet - a 5 year old female spayed cat. After I had
been there for a year, I got a free carpet cleaning which I had done in
June 2004. When I moved out of the apartment in December 2004, the
carpet looked fine to me - no visible stains on the carpets and no
odors.

A couple of days after I moved out, I got an invoice charging me
over $400 for the carpet due to pet stains. Outraged, I called and
spoke with the manager.

Now, I had dealt with her on numerous
occasions during my time at AMLI and she was always nice and
professional. But the story was completely different now that I was no longer a
resident. She insulted my intelligence repeatedly and tried to tell me
that there were "fresh" pet stains under the carpet and that it smelled
horrible in the apartment. She tried to tell me that the majority of
their carpet damage came from cats. I'm sorry, but I've had my cat
since she was 5 years old and she has NEVER in her life not used her litter
boxes. She has been spayed since she was 6 weeks old and I have never
had a female cat that "sprayed" like she insisted my cat must have
done. Besides that, when cats spray, they back up to an object and spray -
an object like furniture, drapes, beds, etc, not carpet. I don't know
where this woman got her degree in Veterinary Medicine, but I think she needs
to get her money back!

Also, she said she had taken pictures of
the damage and would be happy to send them to me. Almost a full month
to the day later, I got a letter from her in the mail with a one page
printout of these pictures. In her letter, she stated that she was sure
that once I saw the pictures, I would understand why they had charged
me so much. It was ridiculous! The pictures were literally the size of
a postage stamp and were black and white! The pictures were of the
back side of carpet - you couldn't tell anything at all from these
pictures! I'm not even convinced that the pictures were of my apartment -
even though she threw in a picture of my front door with the apt. # on it
for good measure.

Basically, I feel like I was unfairly charged
a disproportionate amount of money for the amount of damage that my
pets might have caused. When I moved in and the carpet was already
damaged, they claimed that the former tenant didn't even have a pet. Well,
I'm sorry, but the former tenant clearly did have a pet - which
apparently they agreed with because the did reclean the carpet. I feel like
they are charging me for that tenant's damage as well as any that my pets
might have caused.

I think more than the money, I'm the most
upset with how insulting the manager was to me on the phone and how stupid
she apparently thinks I am.

I'm in the process of preparing a
letter to send to their corporate offices right now.

User Responses
From: davidleesmith	Date: 05/14/2005
Hello, On the move-in checklist did you state that the apartment smelled like urine and/or had urine stains on the carpet? I don't think female cats spray.....only males spray. Is that right? There is definitely something fishy going on. I have 2 cats and they have NEVER done anything outside of their litter boxes. They would be appalled at the accusation. Write to the corporate office, Better Business Bureau, & The Texas Apartment Association (TAA). And let the apartment manager and the corporate office know of your intentions. You may or may not get your deposit back, but you will have let others know about this issue so they it may be avoided in the future. Good luck.

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