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Shady Management Company

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Shady Management Company

Postby rentinginbrooklyn » Wed Feb 03, 2010 1:33 pm

Hello all.

I am wondering about some advice to deal with a management company/property manager who are avoiding me about necessary repairs.

Long story short, I signed a lease with a roommate on a garden-level apartment that was being renovated. The company allowed us to do a walk-thru before we moved in to point out necessary reapirs and safety measures. Our biggest concern was the lack of bars on one ground floor window (it had the top half but no bottom), the fact that the windows don't lock properly at both the front and rear of the apartment, and a front door to the common hallway that does not lock securely and is only connecting to the wall by one hinge!

Our property manager seemed nice at first, and we faxed her the information 2 weeks before our lease started. She said she would get back to us. Days went by and we started playing phone tag. Eventually, after a week we get a hold of her and she says she never got the fax. We resend. We play phone tag again. She says the repairs will be done.

The day our lease starts I finally get my keys from another agent (I never got ahold of her). I stop by my place that I am now occupying and there is a handyman still doing repairs! Almost nothing was done. We contact her again and hear nothing.

So far we have only been able to get a hold of a receptionist at this company's Manhattan office. Our property manager never returns voicemails or answers her phones. We've asked to speak to someone else to help us but the receptionist says only our property manager can do anything. Yesterday, we found the President of the company's email on their website and decided we had no other recourse but to contact him. We made him aware of the situation and asked for him to put someone in touch with us.

Our property manager called today, livid of course, because we had "went over her head". We were just as angry with her being that she has been avoiding us. She said the apartment was perfectly fine and livable, but she would have a maintience crew from THEIR company do a walk-thru and if he said it was fine then she said we couldn't ask for anything else, including pro-rating our rent until it's fixed. We brought up the security issues again (never mind the renovations they promised that are still in disrepair)and asked her to walk-thru the unit with us. She refuses to come down there and even said that she doesn't even have to talk to us!

We are completely baffled at this point at were to go next. Our main contact won't do anything for us and we have been unsuccessful going anywhere up the chain in the company. As it stands, our apartment is really easy to break into and I don't feel comfortable with my belongings being in there. We have checked several things in NYC Housing Code that they are in violation of. Do we go to the city next? Which department would we even start with?
rentinginbrooklyn
 
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