The Office Again

I went down this morning, an hour after they should have opened, to check my mail and remind the office to change the dead light bulb outside my door. The hallways here are dim enough on their own, let alone when the light above my door is out. Makes it hard to get the key in the lock.  Anyway... It's been at least a week since I let them know and it hasn't happened yet.  Disappointing.
What's more disappointing is that I didn't get to remind them because the office is closed yet again. This time, due to "illness." Fortunately they're only closed til noon.   But I'm going to rant on this, more specifically, the fact that the office is closed again. It's as though they put the sign up last night so they could sleep in this morning. I'd believe it.  With their track record, it'd fit right in with closing the office to run errands, have an extended lunch, or make a goddamned dentist appointment. That last one blew my mind.  I arrived after they were supposed to have opened again (according to the sign), so I knocked on the door to find name omitted was in there and had simply forgotten to change the sign back afterward.  Wtf. No.  You don't close your office during work hours to do your own chores, and then forget to open it back up.  It's absolutely unprofessional and upsetting. Frankly, the office has been unduly closed every other time my husband and/or I go down during working hours. It's not a make or break it kind of aspect of this apartment complex, but it's enough to upset me. I'm glad I won't be here another year. I'm so glad my lease is up in a couple months.

Still Here, Still Disappointed

Yes...I have been gone for a little while, but I am back now, and just as disappointed as ever.

1. Water still pools up at the windows and when the neighbors smoke it up really hard, smells still come in through our bathroom vent. Speaking of pervasive smoke...
2. It gets so bad sometimes that the entire building reeks. It happened again this last week. It got so bad that someone went through and opened every stairwell window they could get to. Middle of Winter, below freezing out, but tenants here either smoke so hard the building reeks, or are so desperate to air the place out that they'll freeze the building. It sucks either way.
3. The construction here is just weak.  When my apartment gets quiet, I can hear the neighbors peeing through the bathroom wall. Who wants to hear their neighbors taking a leak from the supposed comfort of their own home?  Not me, that's who.

Oh, and about the locks on my building  I suppose it's a thing for apartment complexes, having locks on the outermost doors. They're still mighty inconvenient when you're getting groceries though. I've got a specific story in mind as well.  The night when the lock wouldn't work at all.  In a nutshell, I came home with groceries late one evening to find the door by the parking lot was stuck shut. I had to walk all the way around the building to use the (fortunately working) door on the other side. (You can't get to that door from the parking lot. You have to go up to the street and walk the long way around the building.) Anywho, after getting my groceries in, I decided I'd go down and check the stuck door one more time. I figured if my key wouldn't work, I'd prop the door open, put a sign up explaining why, and tell the office tomorrow.  However, the door wouldn't open at all from either side. It's not like you need a key to leave the building. It was just jammed.  So I called emergency maintenance.

The maintenance dudes here may be the only/best feature of this complex. They're prompt and know their stuff. They came out that night and fixed it.

With regards to my malcontent with this apartment complex, the point of this story was not just for me to vent, but also for me to express that this complex bought the cheapest, lightest, dumbest locks they could to put on their building, didn't get them professionally installed, and for that reason, they're likely to not work sometimes. I want to say it's a show of character on the place's part. 

Unreliable.

I've been pretty busy, so today I'm only going to write a brief post. Firstly, I learned from the office about the building key issue. When they said "people were requesting" the locks, they meant prospective tenants were asking about them as they checked out the complex.  And for that reason, they are installing locks on the building doors. They're going at a rate of one building a month. So it's going to take them the better part of a year to get this done, but...they're doing it. Any progress is progress.  That's that.
The mail, however, is still in the works. I mean package drop-offs.  See this photo?

Those are the notices being left on the locked outside doors. More specifically, the door by the street which close to no one uses, and not the one by the parking lot where traffic is greatest. When I asked the office about it, I was told they've asked the postmen to leave notices on both doors. They haven't been doing so yet, but perhaps they'll figure it out. In the meantime, some carriers are able to get in the building, because we've still been getting some notes on our personal door. I'm not sure how that's happening, but it is.
And some reiteration time. The real issues I have here are the other tenants and building construction. For instance, I woke up this morning because the entire apartment smelled of crap. This has happened once before. And multiple times with pot smoke. My right-side neighbor and I share bathroom walls, and if they have serious smells in their apartment, it backs up and floods into mine. That is almightily annoying.  So...construction. And noisy neighbors. Those are my biggest issues. But I want to mention again that the staff here really are pretty great, the maintenance dudes and the office ladies. They're friendly, busy, and attend to issues quickly. I know I've complained about the office hours being sporadic before, but when they're there and working, they're pretty great. That's all for now. I'm not proofreading this because my head hurts. If I typo'd...oh well.  :u

No Title Today

Oops. That turned into a title. Oh well.

Did I already rant about the office hours? Firstly, I'll let you know they're bologna. Secondly, I'll use a list for brevity. And because I like lists.

1. The lunch hours. What are they? Whatever they are, they aren't scheduled. The office ladies just take off when they want, forsaking any attempt to have a schedule or routine. It sure would be nice if they had scheduled lunch hours, that way when I go down at like 11 or noon one day to find them closed, I can assume they'll be at lunch that time tomorrow as well. And not at like 1 or 2. They really have no schedule when it comes to lunchtime. Go at your risk when it's midday. 
2. They are oftentimes late as well. One time I got down there and the sign said they'd be back at the next hour. That was only a few minutes away, so I decided to wait around. "One thing led to another," and I ended up waiting an hour before the three ladies all showed up. Together, in the same car, they'd come back from some impromptu lunch party or something. Talk about unprofessional. There's three of them. If they're all working that day, they should take lunch breaks in turns so that the office is staffed--not all run out for two hours to have a party.
3. The being closed randomly is getting annoying. Sometimes, if they have a legit excuse, they'll put a sign up saying why they're closed. But usually, they're just closed. One example of many... Yesterday, Josh and I went down in hopes of getting a package that'd been left at the office. They were closed, but were supposed to open in ten minutes, so we hung around. (It was an important package.) About twenty minutes later, one of the ladies finally shows up to unlock the building, and instead of giving us our package, asks us to come back later. Wtf, but fine. So we came back later, and they were closed. Still. Again. Whatever. I could see them in there, via inconspicuous glances, but they wouldn't open. It's so flippin' annoying.   And today, they're still closed. Aaauguhsuldglsd.

So that's the rant about the office hours.  They're dumb. Moving on. None of the other buildings have locks or flyers warning about locks.  I'm starting to think they're only doing my building. Perhaps because there have been a lot of issues in my building. Party related issues. So they're only limiting traffic in my building. That's unfair and stupid, but eh.  And it'd work fine...if the ghetto residents didn't leave trash stuffed in the building doors to prop them open. Example A:

It was an empty foil box.  I'm pretty sure I know exactly who left it. So I snatched it from the door and went down to tell the office. But alas...they are closed today. I'm miffed for reasons like this:  these locks were installed with a purpose. The keys people had to pick up to use these locks were expensive. And carry a stupid-hefty fine for service, according to the office. And my ghetto neighbors are just going to ignore everything...and stuff trash in the door.  Jiminy Christmas, I hate them. What's the point of locks if you're going to prevent their use.  Also, I just hate my neighbors. But my knowing it was them, and my hate, are for another rant, another day...

I'll leave you with some little courtesy photos of the laundry room in my building. All four washers and dryers. I'm not sure the room gets cleaned once a month. It's usually kind of dirty. And unlocked.

Ghetto Neighbors

I won't go into detail. But if hearing your nasty neighbors shouting and arguing through the wall, and constantly slamming their porch door is something you'd like to avoid, I'd suggest avoiding this complex. I'll have more to post later, maybe tomorrow.  But for now, I just put on a movie and turned it up so I don't have to hear them.  Or the twats below us. God, I hate them all.

Laundry and Locks

Firstly, the laundry again. I'm just miffed because it stole some quarters. I dream of a day where I go to use a laundry machine I'm already paying for, and it won't steal my money. That would be awesome.

And then the building locks. Just my building, of course. I'm not sure whether or not the other 6-8 buildings are going to get locks on their outside doors. We'll see. But they did finally install the outdoor locks on my building.  They're aren't too shabby. Definitely cheap. But they work well enough. Smooth move, putting flimsy locks on a mostly glass door. But whatever.   Here's my issue, though. What about the pizza and delivery dudes?  Just today, I saw where a delivery man tried to get in to leave a notice on someone's door, but couldn't, so he left his sticky tab on the glass outside. The issue is that there are two building doors, one on either side of the building, and the parking lot is on the other side. The side where the delivery dude left his note is along the street where close to no one parks. It's more like a convenient drop-off. Everyone parks on the other side of the building. So there's a good chance that whoever will never see that note and be left wondering about his/her package.  And of course, if you're expecting delivery pizza, I guess you'll have to wait for 'em down there.

The whole thing just irks me.  Everything about this place. Especially the laundry things. Like different priced machines in different buildings, and that the only machines supplied to me have taken quarters from me. I really don't like this complex. Don't move here.

The On-Site Laundry

It's also a teeny bit sketchy, or at the least, disappointing. I have two to three simple reasons, listed with growing irritation.

1. In my building, and I believe the others, there are only 2-3 washing and drying machines in the laundry room. So you do have on-site laundry, in your building, but there may only be two machines, so schedule your laundry wisely. Sometimes I get to the laundry room, and one person is using both machines. Urg. All in all, though, that's not so big a deal.
2. I'll preface this next one with "No, it's not that big a deal to me." It honestly isn't. I haven't had any laundry stolen, so I'm not genuinely worried about the safety of my unattended clothing.  What it's about is integrity. When I signed the lease here, I was given a key to the laundry room in my building, which they claimed would always be locked. That's nice. That means way less people have casual access to the laundry room, which does deter theft. (Believe you me, it happens.) Anywho...that'd be great, except 1/3 of the time I visit my laundry room, it isn't locked.  Like I said, I'm not terribly worried for my laundry. The issue here is my management being able to stick to their word. Their integrity, their willingness to perform in the way they promised on my lease.  And claiming doors will be locked, when in fact they aren't, is just another of the many little things that irks me about their management.
3. Lastly, and the most sketchy to me:  Varying prices depending on which building you live in. Allow me to elaborate. If you've read the previous post or two, the one with the building keys, you'll recall I have a buddy in another building here.  I was hanging out with her one time while she was doing her laundry, so I got to check out the laundry room in another building, at the same complex, of course.  I was very surprised to find that her machines were just as small as mine, but by a different company, and almost twice the price.  Almost twice the price. For a laundry machine really no different from mine.  Sounds like complete bologna, right?  Boy wasn't SHE miffed when I told her.  My friend went to the office to ask about it, and management's reasoning is that they're using different companies for different buildings (or some BS like that), and they were planning on switching over "eventually."  (After eight months, they haven't.)  So for a tenant in another building, renting from the same complex, she's obligated to pay twice as much to use the on-site laundry facility, simply because of the building she lives in.   Doesn't that sound incredibly lame?

So ah....there's a third rant for today. I'm doing laundry, so it came to mind as something I ought to mention about this place. The unfair laundry prices, for sure. Management's mighty friendly, but...something about the complex in its entirety is just odd. Poorly planned. That's all I have for now (again).  See ya!