Add new comment

Been in a highrise for 2 months with 12 month lease. Had no idea the maintenance problems they have. The hot water has been out for periods of over 24 hrs. at least 3 times. All water has been off for periods of about 10 hrs. twice. I was initially drinking the tap water but quit after coming in one evening and it was running brown even after being on for 10 minutes. Next day I checked the water and the glass had a foam head that looked like some type of detergent. Note that they posted signs apologizing for the water/hot water being out but never mentioned the brown water or water with detergent. 3 different tenants have been told they had to leave within a few days because water pipes had ruptured in their apartments. They all said management was letting them out of their leases but not helping with any expenses. I suspect that may not be true but they had probably agreed to not discuss it. Periodically the carpets in the halls are wet and sometimes they put large pieces of carpet over the wet spots. I'm on the 10th floor with my window facing the evening sun. The whole building shares a common heating/cooling system and they have left leflets on our doors stating they cannot switch over to cooling because of problems. My apartment is like an oven in the evening and into the night. I get some releif if I can raise the windows but I can't even do that if its storming. They stated that from May 1 to May 7 the entire system will be shut down while they replace piping to get the cooling system working. The trash shoot is currently out of order, for about 7 days now. This is the second time that's happened. Their note states we have to take trash down to the 1st floor. In addition to these maintenance problems my apartment is next to the elevator shafts and they make lots of noise. I have often been woke up in the middle of the night by a loud elevator. Also, the elevators have no inspection certificates in them. They are raggedy and onetime I actually had the door continue to close when I put my hand in front of it to push the black bumper back. That tells me the switch is getting bad. During one of the water outage periods someone circulated a flier under our doors urging everyone to call the property owner, a company in another state, to complain and I have several times heard angry comments while in the TV room downstairs.

I moved here because they had a "$99 move in special" going and I needed to move as cheaply as possible. They gave no indication of all these maintenance problems. The lease states a set amount required to break the lease which is about 1.5 times my monthly rent. The current owner bought the building about 6 months ago and its obvious they should have dealt with the maintenance issues before filling it with paying residents. I want out of my lease and have no desire to pay them anything. I got out of a lease many years ago when an apartment complex was becoming a garbage heap and I just told them I was leaving and they better just let me go, which they did. I thinking of telling these people the same thing.