It's rainy days like we've been having here lately that make me really grateful that I have a solid roof over my head. Because during one particularly down-pourish rainy spell, while I was living in a pretty crappy apartment complex south of BYU campus, I wasn't as lucky.
I didn't mind at first that my apartment that year was old and really rather crummy. I got used to the drafty, paper-thin walls that made the heater useless and turned a blind eye to the mold in the bathroom that grew at an unbelievably exponential rate. It was affordable and it attracted a lot of really great people who, for the most part, didn't rely on their parents for regular money, people who took their education seriously and held part-time jobs to support themselves. My circle of friends that year grew almost as exponentially as the bathroom mold did. It was a lot of fun.
Only it wasn't so much fun when the swamp cooler belonging to the apartment two doors down broke. Because the building was designed such that the flat-top roof over the girls hall and the flat-top roof over the boys hall allowed for collecting water to drain to the center lobby area and ultimately off the roof altogether, the drainage from the broken swamp cooler down the hall did what it was supposed to and flowed to the center of the building. Only the roof was old and the weight of the gushing swamp cooler water was too much. So it started to leak. And where do you think it started to leak? I'll give you a hint: my apartment shared a wall with the center lobby area.
It started as drip right outside our doorway, then progressed to a steady trickle. And when the early July rainstorm hit -- and stayed for several days -- it developed into a waterfall. My roommates and I put up with it for as long as we could, but soon the water started seeping into the upstairs closets. Management said they were taking care of it, but all that apparently meant was that they would put out a bucket to catch the water -- which had turned black, by the way, after it passed through the tar on the roof. So gross. On the second or third day of hard, steady rain (which happened to be several weeks after the swamp cooler broke), I couldn't take it any more. Our apartment reeked of filthy water and everything was wet. I couldn't leave my apartment without getting drenched in an indoor hallway. So I went to the off-campus housing office to lodge a BIG complaint.
If any of you have ever tried to work with the off-campus housing office at BYU, you know that they always favor the landlords, never the renters. So my little chat with them didn't go very far. I had two reasons for visiting with them: 1) to see about giving our management a good kick in the pants to get this problem taken care of before the entire ceiling fell through, and 2) to see if there was any way to get out of the contract I'd signed for the next year (because despite the good times I'd had there up to this point, I did NOT want to live there another year -- not after this mess). I was basically told they could do nothing for me.
While I was sitting in their office waiting for my turn to speak with someone, I noticed that the phones were ringing off the hook. A little eavesdropping let me in on the fact that the situation back at the home front was getting exponentially worse. After my appointment, I hurried back home to see what was going on. It wasn't good. The ceiling over the whole lobby area had fallen completely through. There was plaster and puddles everywhere. It was awful. I walked into our apartment and it smelled absolutely sour -- not to mention that it was getting quite wet in there, too. I couldn't stay there, it was so bad, though the management thought that I could deal with it. At any rate, they weren't going to put me or any of my roommates up in another apartment or in a hotel -- after all, they told us, we were all from Utah Valley -- we could just go live with our parents for a while. To which I replied that yes, that was true, but that wasn't the point.
Anyway, to quickly wrap up an already long story, let's just say that they finally got someone to come repair the roof -- only they didn't do a very good job and another leak (right outside our door) sprung about a month later. Meanwhile, my roommates and I bunked with our families while our apartment dried out. We were not reimbursed us for our troubles. I'm not sure they even apologized. Oh, and I was able to sell my contract to an unsuspecting newly returned sister missionary who had spent the last year and a half in Scandinavia and had no idea that this complex was so riddled with problems.
So yes -- today, and on all rainy days, I am very grateful to have a solid roof over my head.
5 comments:
I am so tempted to ask you, so I'm just going to--where was it? It sounds frighteningly reminiscent of what happened to my sister a few years ago. She was living in a ghetto complex south of campus and it was ridiculous what they put up with. I want to say it was about 2000 or 2001 or so. It was before her mish.
Her story ended with her filing a lawsuit against the owner and it going to court. She and her roommates got a month's free rent. She wasn't thrilled, but it was something.
Desmama -- This story happened at Southridge in 2003, though, I've heard similar horror stories from other complexes.
Oh student housing. Seriously, landlords take advantage of poor, desparate college students. It's sad.
My worst living conditions would have to be in South America. Sometimes I still can't believe how I lived down there, but I survived.
Did they say that you needed to have renter's insurance to get any special accommodations? Having just gone through this with our tenants, it really sucks for the renters and not as much for the landlord, who is required by law to have insurance.
Sucky situation, though, all the way around. At least your bed was probably up on cinder blocks, right? So it was safe? :)
Kristeee -- no, renter's insurance never even came up, actually. I really think it boiled down to flakey management. My bedroom was on the other side the apartment, so I didn't get much more than an awful stench, but my roommates had some things water damaged in their closet.
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