Deceit
I looked at my apartment three times before signing the lease because I was having a hard time deciding between two complexes. On-line reviews were terrible for The Club, and only slightly better for The Highlands (which I've since learned is managed by the same company, B&H management).
B. from the office, said she would have maintenance look at three issues. They weren't issues I asked to have addressed; they were things that she saw me either notice, or heard my friend Jessica and I discuss, and offered that she would have it taken care of.
First, the kitchen light fixture was dripping with grease and full of bugs. This is not unusual, but I was looking, and may or may not have said something out loud. B. said, “I'll have maintenance take care of that before you move in.” Needless to say, it was not taken care of. Shortly after moving in, but having not yet cleaned the fixture myself, the bulb burnt out, forcing me to take care of it.
Taking the cover off to clean or change the bulb is a two person job. I did manage to get the cover off and cleaned, but the bulb is a specialty bulb that has to be replaced by maintenance. They sent someone immediately, so I took my dog for a walk because removing him is easiest for everyone. When we returned, I had a new bulb, but the cover was left for me to wrestle with. It's only by sweat and bad words that I got it back on. It was difficult and, without a second person to hold the cover while I screwed screws, I was at risk of damaging the whole fixture. I'm confident I would have been financially responsible had that happened.
Secondly, the gutters. I'm a homeowner and have experience with foundations and water issues. I take these issues very seriously. The two gutters were not attached to the downspouts, but frozen in huge puddles against the foundation. I expressed concern and B. said, “well, it's frozen, but I'll have maintenance take care of it when it's warmer.”
After I moved in, I placed a work order and a guy came out to “fix” the gutters. He didn't do anything I couldn't have done myself, didn't really fix them, and the gutters are, once again, on the ground, like trash.
Third, and most exasperating, is the storage space in the basement. Each apartment has a designated storage space and this feature tipped the scales for me. As we were looking in the unit, Jessica and I talking about the moldy boxes, bug carcasses, and piled up trash, once again, B. said “I'll have maintenance get this cleaned out for you.”
I moved in, got busy unpacking between work and the stuff of life. After a few weeks, I was ready to sort, organize, and decide what to store in the basement. The first step was to clean out the storage unit. Between the time B. said she would have it cleaned out and the time I was ready to start using it, someone had shoved more boxes of moldy books and other junk into the unit I was just about to start using.
When I contacted the office about it, I was told to just use a different one. OK. Except every single storage space is full of nasty, moldy, piles of junk.
None of these three things would have caused me to choose The Highlands. I would not have expected any of these three things to be taken care of until B. said that they would be. Her words set my expectation, and her words have since become lies.
And these lies sum up my experience living at The Club at Indian Creek in Overland Park. It's all been downhill from here.