I wanted to start off by saying I'm in a really good mood right now. I found out my promotion finally got through. Last year, I started a new position (new title, same location, same work) that I applied and competed for. In the federal system, some jobs have noncompetitive promotion potential, and after a year, upon supervisor's discretion, you get promoted. Well, the last couple of weeks, I've been a little bummed out because, a year later...no promotion. I thought I did something wrong and that my boss hated me and I was getting disgruntled. So needless to say, I'm having a great start to the weekend. The BF and I will be able to do more activities (Step Brother's reference....watch it).
Anyway, back to the reason of my post.
After five years, we are not renewing our lease. We have our reasons, with cost being the biggest. But I was thinking about the past 5 years of living here and I came to the realization, we should've moved out a long time ago.
Now granted, our place isn't in a bad area. In fact, I love the area, the neighborhood is quiet and the location is convenient to everything. And I even like our apartment. We've just had so many issues with this place. I think the biggest problem is the fact that the management company is nationwide with properties across the country. Once a company gets to a certain size, I've noticed quality of service goes down, and corners are cut, while prices increase. And I know not all big companies are like that, but our management company is. And some of our gripes were beyond their control (ie. neighbors).
From the beginning:
-Our first lease, we paid $1028/month. A little expensive that what we were expecting, but whatever.
-Shortly after moving in, we've noticed how many corners were cut during construction. Studs aren't spaced right in the wall. Caulk was used to secure stuff to the walls. Our ceiling is crooked. But again, whatever, we were ok with that.
-The first month, in the middle of the night, our bathroom ceiling starts leaking, like a lot. Apparently, right before we moved in, the plumbing in between ours and the tenants us above had issues. It was supposed to have been fixed but the tenant above us decided to use the shower before the problem was completely fixed and flooded our bathroom. Maintenance "fixed" it and put drywall and tape up. Never painted it over though. Which is a good thing because it continued to happen a couple of more times. Apparently, the neighbor above us didn't want to wait and would run the shower and continue to flood our bathroom again. Oh, and both our apartments have two bathrooms. It's not like they didn't have another shower to use. That whole routine finally stopped and five years later, we still have taped drywall on our ceiling. Never painted over. It's attractive actually....
-Every year, our HVAC stopped working. Either we didn't have heat or water would pour out of our HVAC unit and flood our carpeted closet. Awesome. Carpet and water is a great combination...
-The same neighbors that flooded our one bathroom, flooded the other. Toilet water was raining down everywhere. It was quite gross. I called the emergency maintenance guy, who happened to be in another state, hours away. Not really sure how that made sense, but whatever. I ended up using our own wet vac to clean it up. Oh and by the time maintenance came over, everything was dried and when the lovely neighbors above us were asked if their toilet overflowed, they said it never did.
-We've had a slow toilet leak in the tank for I think the last year. Maintenance has come by a couple of times and claims to have fixed it. The toilet is leaking right now.
-We had to move out of our place for two weeks, so our floor could get jackhammered up. Apparently, the same apartment in every building had to have this done. To their credit, they did put us up in an unoccupied and furnished apartment, but we were told about it not even a full week before. Oh and when we moved back in, the carpet was never put back right (there's an inch between the carpet and the wall). There's concrete and visible wood in that one inch space. And it's inhibited the cat to constantly pick at the carpet along the wall. And there was concrete dust everywhere. Every single thing in our place had to get cleaned....by us, well mainly the BF.
-The sump pump stopped, so naturally our living room floods. It starts at the corner where all of our electronics are. Yea. Maintenance barely wet vacced our carpet and left fans. That's it.
-The BF has had multiple packages stolen. He was hesitant to order stuff online. One time, we saw a package that was ripped open with women's clothing pulled out. We deduced it was a guy taking the packages. If he has to order anything, he uses my name as the "Ship to."
-Every time I call emergency maintenance, I get sent to a call center in Virginia. I live in Maryland.
-Our upstairs neighbors (who have long since left, Thank God.) Constant smokers who'd throw cigarette butts right in front of our window. The door to our building locks, which I like because it prevents random people from walking in. Anyway, there were quite some times, I'd be right behind them with my arms full and they would go out of the way to lock the door behind them. I'd then have to put my stuff down on the ground to unlock the door. And I'm pretty sure they were the ones stealing the BF's stuff.
-Every lease renewal, there's a new monthly fee that we weren't told about.
-We've never seen the same maintenance man or office staff twice. It's always someone different. I guess the staff is a revolving door.
-And we're now paying $1320/month. And it just doesn't feel worth it.
-And because we're moving out, we have to pay a couple of hundred to have our carpet steam cleaned and shampooed, even when we know it's getting replaced anyway. It's frustrating, and there's nothing we can do.
We're fortunate enough that the BF is a handyman. The list would've been so much longer if we had rely on the apartment services to remediate our issues. We found it was easier if the BF just fixed things himself. His fixes ended up being better anyway.
We're also fortunate enough that we were able to find another place for way cheaper. The place is actually bigger, the management company is smaller, our commutes are about the same, the kitchen is bigger and I will have tons of closet space. Just what I need with all this crap I have. And the BF has a friend that lives there and since he's getting a referral bonus, he better believe he's helping us move.
I also found out I have something coming up next week that could put a monkey wrench into this whole lease ending/moving thing. It's essentially a good thing, but depending on how it goes, it could change my plans for the next few months. I'll talk more about it after.
