Maintenance is virtually non-existent. Conditions worsen

We have received numerous complaints about maintenance requests being completely ignored. They will take down your apartment number and telephone number and apparently the request just disappears completely, until you call them again. The turnaround time for maintenance requests lately has reached about 10 days. This includes emergencies, which means if you have a leaky toilet or broken shower etc. don't expect it to be fixed for at least 7-10 days. We are posting below another woeful experience sent to us by a fellow resident.

"Hey there,

I found this website while searching for the leasing office's telephone number on the internet (you would be surprised at how hard it is to find a working number for the leasing office).

I've lived in the same 1 bedroom, 1 bath apartment here for about a year. I hadn't had any complaints up until now... I was fairly happy with my experience here, but what has happened recently has made me glad that my lease is about to expire. I'll finally be able to move out.

About two weeks ago the cold water faucet in the bathtub stopped working. It was stripped, and the cold water would turn on only if you applied a lot of pressure to the faucet while you were trying to turn on the water. I called into the leasing office to report the problem. I was told that they would send maintenance out as soon as possible. I waited, and waited... no one came. I was okay with it though, there were major renovations going on, I thought maybe all the maintenance were busy... plus, the cold water was still working.

About four days ago the cold water faucet stopped working completely. It was stripped to the point of just spinning freely... no amount of pressure could get the water running. I called in to the leasing office again, was told that someone would come out ASAP. Two night ago, I had an intramural soccer game at school... after coming home, I was forced to take a shower under steaming hot water. I called the office again to remind them that I had filed a request... still no one came. Yesterday I actually walked into the leasing office to tell them what was going on... still today, no one came to fix the problem. If I can't get anyone to come out here by friday, I might have to talk to a lawyer to see what sort of options are available to me.

I just wanted to share.

Thanks.
<identify protected>

Experiences of some Recent tenants (March 2008)

We are sharing some of the experiences that were shared with us from recent tenants.

DS writes " I'm DS, the person who wrote the email that you posted on January 7, 2008 in this blog. I wrote that I would be breaking my lease in the first half of 08. Well, I could only make it through one month of 08 before I broke my lease. I spent 6 weeks listening to the music that the people below me in A-303 played. Consistently, they played music most of the night. My bedroom walls and floor vibrated from the music. I complained regularly to the office. They talked with the people below me. That only solved the problem for a couple of days then it started all over again. Finally, one night I put a tape recorder on my bedroom floor. I taped the music and the conversations coming from below. I took that to the office.

 

I left numerous messages for the security officer. Not once did he knock on my door to check out the complaint. Not once and he lived down the hall from me. I think this is because he works the night shift for APD and is not at the property when these things go on.

 

Apparently, I was the only one complaining. I knocked on my neighbors doors and learned most of them do not speak English as their first language. I don't think they know what their rights are because of the language barrier.

 

The property manager, Melissa, was really nice and allowed me to break my lease without an early termination fee because of all that I had gone through. That saved me some money but I still had to pay the movers and connection fees associated with the move.

 

Good luck to everyone still there."

=============================================================================================================================
AD writes, "I lived at the Heights last spring-summer. My roommate and I moved from DC (drove straight through the night) to find this place. We had researched apartments for months prior to moving and this one seemed, although old, like a good choice (via their web site). My roommate had been in Atlanta before I came and was working the the leasing office alone. She asked if she could see the place, but they told her that with out me she couldn't. When we finally arrived after the long and far drive to sign the lease and move in we were a bit disappointed when we saw the place (basically b/c it is pretty ugly and there were a lot more "ghetto" people than we were expecting. We were given a brief tour and again to our disappointment, the place we were shown was not what we were promised. We had been told we would have a completely different layout than what we were shown. We were to have a balcony and a much larger place ( we lived in one of the only places that had no balcony). Anyways, we got over these slight problems and decided to go ahead a stay. As we moved in and days after we noticed many problems which we brought to the management team. My closet was missing a door and my roommates was falling of its hinges and the place was pretty dirty. These things never got taken care of, even after repeatedly complaining about them. As months went on more problems arose. There were leaky sinks, loud neighbors, the pool was unusable due to maintenance or something, the gate was always broken, our gate cards rarely worked, poor lighting out side there was pee in the entrance way, trash everywhere....and ROACHES....lots and lots of roaches!!! We are not dirty people so we know it was not us. We brought this all to the attention on the staff and low and behold nothing was properly taken  care of. We felt unsafe and dirty and no one seemed to care! Finally after much frustration...we went to the manager of the apartment and demanded to be let out of our lease ofter 4 months or so of living there. My roommate has worked in property management so she knew some ropes. I guess they must have always have problems and were scared to be sued that they did not argue with us and made a contract that if we were still unhappy in _ time we could be let out of our lease with no penalty. Two months later we found a new place to live and moved out of that shit hole!

This place is misleading, unsafe, discus ting, management and maintenance suck and are rude, and most of all roach infested, etc. This place should be torn down b/c there is nothing that can be done to salvage it and whoever owns the building needs to be thrown in jail or whatever! Thank you guys for having this blog and doing something about this major problem in Buckhead. I feel as though everyone who lives there and who has ever lived there should be refunded their money and paid for "pain and suffering"...sounds a bit over board but that was the worst experience of my live (including college dorms).

Sorry this was so long but I get so angry thinking about our experience!"

To our readers: Be sure to post comments in the comments section of this post. We` are constantly updating now and the manager and his staff know about our blog and read it on a regular basis. Share the truth with the world because the management will not.

The Heights at Lenox Reaches a New Low in Ignorance! No emergency response.

Posted March 15, 2008

Today we received exactly 11 e-mails from the consortium that is getting ready to sue the management for negligence and tenant law violations. Since Friday Match 14th, there is no hot water in any of the buildings. This was after a week of hot and cold water on alternate days. Most tenants called on Friday to alert the management. The manager told us it was "fixed" without testing it themselves. Tenants had to spend Friday evening , night and Saturday morning without hot water (it was not even lukewarm). On Saturday morning, after reaching the limit of frustration, tenants started calling again. To our "surprise", there was no option on their phone to report emergencies. Usually if the office is closed, the phones are set so that emergencies can be reported. Many of us called the manager's office after the office was opened and they admitted that it was not "fixed" on Friday as they had wrongly thought. They told us they were looking into it as all 6 buildings were without hot water. This was around 1 pm on Saturday.

Its 8 pm on Saturday when we are posting this on our blog and there is still no hot water in any of the buildings!!
Our attempts to call the management office are again useless because the phone rings about 11 times and then just cuts off. No option to leave voice message. Imagine the plight of the tenants tonights. The water is cold and the management turns a cold shoulder to our concerns. Not providing hot water for tenants is a state law violation and our consortium has gathered more records of our complaints which strengthens our case during our upcoming lawsuit. For any tenants last 2 days who had a water leak, toilet overflow, broken appliance (emergencies), there was no way to report them as emergencies during off-office hours. This is a service that is required from the management according to Georgia State Tenant laws.

Upcoming lawsuit against the Heights at Lenox
We represent 47 current and past tenants at the Heights at Lenox (Previously "Summit at Lenox") who have been mistreated and have been subject to unacceptable living conditions. We have already established a case and our lawyers are getting ready.

If you have anything to report (not just hot water outage but any unfavorable conditions at the Heights at Lenox like safety, crime, noise, filth), please send us an e-mail at hatlenox@yahoo.com. Your identity will remain anonymous. We need as many people to complain as possible so this Ghetto at Lenox will be tamed.


Kris