Complaint letter

[GhaleonOne]

I'm wanting to get some feedback on this. I'm writing a complaint letter to the management of my apartment complex, as me and my brother have had to hassle with about twenty problems. I generally will just overlook things when I get wronged like this, but enough is enough. We've been hassling with a number of problems with this place for months now. It's weird, because it's a beautiful place. It's on a golf course, has all sorts of good things for tenants (state of the art fitness center, free golf, nice swimming pool, sauna's, a hottub, a game room, etc.). But the management at the office are complete and utter -Albino Baboon-. As one guy put it Friday walking out of there: "You go in this place and they treat you like you're f***ing BTK or something" (for those that don't know, BTK is the major serial killer that was caught in Wichita back in March that killed people over the past 3 decades). So basically, I've written this letter to the management in Arkansas hoping to get something out of this (particularly, my damn deposit). I want to make sure it makes sense to someone who doesn't know the situation though, so that I'm not just sounding like a crazed lunatic. I'd love to take pointers on what's understandable and what's not.

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To Lindsey Management:

I live in The Greens in Derby, KS, and have a number of complaints I would like to address. I originally moved in here last summer into a one-bedroom apartment. My brother finished his first two years of college and moved back here and in June we moved from the one bedroom apartment into a two bedroom apartment. Now, we’ve had absolutely nothing against us. We pay our rent on time, have never been late, have never been called in for complaints from neighbors about anything, follow the curfews and rules of the apartment complex and quite honestly, should be considered good tenants.

The main problem I’m having is getting my deposit back from the one-bedroom apartment. We moved into this two-bedroom on June 7th, and were supposed to be out of the old one on June 9th. Now, this didn’t even work out well, as when we went to get the keys the morning of the 7th, we were told they were still putting carpet down, but yet, they kept pushing us regarding getting out of the one bedroom before we were even given keys to the 2 bedroom. The 7th was a Tuesday. On Wednesday, they had already sent a cleaning guy in while we were trying to move, to see what he would need to do, in which the guy mentioned coming in to clean on the 9th, which we were supposed to have to move out still. And considering a majority of the 7th was taken by them still putting carpet in, it was kind of crappy that we were rushed so fast, just because they were off-schedule. But we got out by the end of the 9th, and on top of that, cleaned the place up well for them before leaving, cleaning the walls, carpets, bathroom, kitchen, etc. We did a very good job.

After about 15 days, I called up to the office and asked how long it would be before we got a deposit. The person that answered said a “month”, which didn’t fit the 14-days, but I didn’t bother arguing over it. We also were supposed to get back a 50 dollar waterbed deposit that I had gotten rid of back in March. So the deposit is supposed to be worth $300 rather than $250. I asked about that waterbed deposit in March when I got rid of it two or three times, and was never given a real answer, so figured I’d just wait and quiz them when moving out.

Now, since we moving out, between me and my brother, we’ve probably called at least 10-15 times, and gone up to the front office maybe 4-6 times trying to get this deposit thing going. It seemed like every time we asked them they acted as if we were a hassle, because they were just “so busy” (which is the answer most people get when they try and get anything out of the front office, generally they say “We’re swamped, call back later.” when trying to get something straightened out). Gets old calling three times in one day. Last Friday was the last time we called them regarding the deposit. When we called Friday the manager told us that she had checked on the deposit, and that they were processing it either Friday or Saturday and it would be mailed out then. On top of that, she told us we were going to get $180 of it back. This doesn’t fly well. We were told $120 was taken for cleaning. That’s ridiculous when we left the place in good condition, and on top of that, have had to wait 2 months to even get the damn thing, which we still have yet to receive. It’s Wednesday, and the deposit check was not in our mail yet again today. As of today, it has been exactly 55 days since we were out of that apartment into this two-bedroom. It’s funny that they list that anyone who’s late paying rent has to pay a $20/day late fee, yet if I was able to charge this place that kind of money for how long they were late paying me my deposit back, it’d over $800.

To be honest, we’ve had to pay late fees on bills because we had expected to use this deposit money to cover them. After calling so many times, going down to the front office and asking, and just never getting any real answer, I’m getting fed up with it. And then to top it off, finding out they’re taking almost half of the deposit for “cleaning fees” when the place was left in very good condition really irks me. And again on top of that, when I went in to the front office over a month ago for the first time, it sounded like nothing had been turned in, written down, or anything regarding it, so how in the world am I being charged 120 bucks when there apparently wasn’t even a record of our deposit refund being processed on file? Quite honestly, had I gotten the $180 deposit on time, I wouldn’t even bother throwing a fit over this, but just having all this stack up over the past few months, I felt it was time to take this to the main offices in Arkansas, which is why I’ve written this letter.

And had it just been the deposit I also wouldn’t be so mad, but there’s a number of other issues we’ve had.

Quite honestly, I know I’m not the only one who has felt shafted by this place at times. On Friday, the last time we went into the front office, an older man was walking out after dealing with them, and turns to us and stated something along the lines of feeling sorry that we were living here, as he was moving out and had never been treated worse in any apartment complex he had lived in over his years. He went a little into detail about how he felt the front office treated him rudely the entire time here. And he’s not the only one I’ve heard complaints from. There’s been about 5-6 others that have made comments along those lines, and to top it off, last time I was paying my water bill (which is located with the city hall) they made a comment about how The Greens were getting a bad reputation for the way they’re treating the people living here. My grandparents also live in these apartments and have heard a number of complaints from other tenants near their building. It’s like, some of the time you can walk in to the office and they’re having a good day and will treat you very nicely, but more than half the time you go in there they just act like you’re an annoyance. About the only person in management up there that treats you nicely the entire time is Rod, and he’s pretty much only in charge of maintenance from what I’ve understood, so when it comes time to deal with someone up there about anything else, you’ve got to hassle with some people up there who treat you rudely half the time. I’ve noticed that a majority of the people up there who are nice to tenants don’t seem to last more than a month or two, and they’ve got someone else working in there. Makes me almost think they want rude people in there intentionally to be stiff with their tenants.

We also have a LOT of things wrong with our apartment. From what our neighbors have told us, a mother rented this apartment before us and just let her two sons (who were like, 16 and 17 or so) live in here by themselves. From what we’ve been told, these kids just destroyed the place and were evicted. In fact, our neighbors said that these kids and some girls across the street had egg fights, throwing raw eggs at each other, getting it all over the building, and also hit a number of people’s cars. A week after we moved in, some girls just walked right into our apartment expecting these teens to still live here. They just straight tore the place up. There’s a huge chunk in the wall in the kitchen taken out where you can see they patched up (and not very well). There are globes missing from the lights. One of the stove ranges is just straight up broken, the garbage disposal didn’t work when we first moved in (our dad ended up fixing it for us), there are holes in a number of places, and a number of other things. We turned in the list with quite a few things wrong with it, and we were told they’d come and fix them, but no one has come in to fix anything. Personally, we don’t really even care, as long as we’re not charged for it, but it’s just another thing to add to the list.

To top all of this off, our air conditioning blew out Friday morning. They just got it fixed and running Monday night. I can’t really fault them too much, as it did happen before a weekend, making it hard to get someone out here to fix it, but again, it’s just another thing to add to a fairly good sized list of problems we’ve had with this complex.

I’m not really sure what else to say, but I definitely wanted to let my voice be heard, considering the amount of problems we’ve had. This is a wonderful place to live considering all the amenities, but these waiting lists of people wanting to move here are going to disappear over the next few years if they continue to treat tenants this way.

Mickey and Rusty Shannon

[Kizyr]

...Honestly speaking, it's too long-winded and verbose. A few occasions it's a bit too informal.

I can check it out later when I have more time and do a run-through edit, plus a lot of other suggestions here and there, if you have the time to wait (I don't have a regular internet connection yet, so that might be tomorrow). For now, though, I'd suggest trimming your explanations of the various situations to where they're short and to-the-point; you don't need as much background for every instance, but just enough to understand where you're coming from. KF

EDIT: Also, dividing it so that you talk about one general subject at a time might help. For instance, first talk about the treatment you receive from management, then about monetary issues, then about damages and disrepair. An even progression from one subject to the next would help someone to easily see the various things wrong with the place. KF

[Sonic#]

I agree with Kizyr about it being long-winded. It would be better done more succinctly. Maybe you could tell them that you have a problem with the management, tell them about the deposit, the state of your apartment, and their treatment in general, and then tell them that you have a problem with the management. You start out good, but perhaps explain the situtation too much. I'm not so good with specific structural changes. I'll instead point out a couple of things I noticed you kept doing.

"...it was kind of crappy that we were rushed so fast..."

Try to avoid 'crappy' (as apt as it is, informally), as well as 'kind of', for it's fluff and makes your argument weaker, like you're not quite sure whether it was crappy or not.

"One of the stove ranges is just straight up broken..."

You use 'just' a lot. You could try to cut down on that some. As for straight up... just informal. 'One of the stove ranges is broken' would do.

And I know I didn't say it before, but your apartment situation sucks. I hope you get a good response from the letter you write.

[Spirit Icana]

I really doubt your the last one to file some personal problem with the offices over the matter. Going by what you said, many other tenants are having issues with their living quarters as well due to lackluster maintenance is seems. I admit, I didn't read all of it, but this letter doesn't sound threatening enough to persuade the offices to call up an army for help. If your living quarters is really that bad, I think you should just move. Of course, if your really serious about fixing these problems, by all means, go for it and don't lose.

[GhaleonOne]

Hard to move when you still have 10 months on your lease though. And thanks for the comments guys. Kiz, if you get time to do it, great, but I do need to send this out today, as I've already sat on it longer than I should have.