Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Yeah, that definetly helps your chances. 5 units is a very small operation. Surprised they even have a manangement company handling it. Not worth paying them. Usually something that small are handled by friends, family, or the owners themselves. Let us know how it works out.

I agree, I guess it's because they are retired and don't want to mess with it.

I spoke to the owner of the unit today for 30 minutes. She can't believe I am honestly finding this to be an issue. She kept talking about how it wasn't even hot. She didn't know I had an attorney or that things had gone this far.

I have no idea what happened after we hung up but I get the feeling my realty place hates me about 10 times more than they did yesterday, LOL

[mgoblue]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

I agree, I guess it's because they are retired and don't want to mess with it.

I spoke to the owner of the unit today for 30 minutes. She can't believe I am honestly finding this to be an issue. She kept talking about how it wasn't even hot. She didn't know I had an attorney or that things had gone this far.

I have no idea what happened after we hung up but I get the feeling my realty place hates me about 10 times more than they did yesterday, LOL

LOL yeah, that's the crappy aspect of going with a smaller group...if you're with some big management company with tons of units they don't care about repairs like this, but I'm sure a new AC unit hits her in the pocketbook a bit....

Hopefully they'll fix it, but I'd move when your lease is over, they probably do hate you lol

[24]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

I sue his rear end off.

[ruserl88]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

odogg , just be sure not to let repair man use your facilities

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

I guess I can't get behind you because I live in Northern Minnesota by Lake Superior, and AC up here is a luxury, not a need. I think I'm uncomfortable about 6 days out of the summer due to heat, and if it gets bad, there's a 55-degree body of water about a mile from my apartment.

On the flip-side there are laws up here regarding not providing heat during the winter. In fact, during the winter I believe it is illegal for the utility company to shut off your source of heat. And if something breaks down and your landlord can't/won't fix it, I'm fairly certain they get in a heap of trouble and you can get alternative lodging free of charge.

Are there any laws like that in the South regarding AC?

[Amoo316]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

I just left a voicemail with the president of the realty place. The woman handling maintenance wouldn't give me his number so I called and selected the directory and typed his name in to get it. I hope he calls back. I'm going to come at him with a sympathetic, please help me out here tone and not a confrontational one.

Honestly I think a big part of this issue that angers me is how the office manager Debbie has treated me. She has this attitude of annoyance that I'm interrupting her day. And her emails just have a real "who the heck are you to be questioning me??" tone.

Terrible customer service. She needs to take a course in how to deal with customers I think.

FFS ODogg it never ends with you man, I guess I should just start following you or something.

I had a situation like this where I moved into an apartment that was pretty nasty after they "cleaned it up for the new tenant"...me. I submitted my initial walk through list to the property manager and she basically told me they would do what they could but didn't have any plans to fix some of the things. I decided I would take things a step further and like you discovered who managed the property. I went to their website and found the name and email address of every executive/property manager/admin person in their company. In one large email I explained how inappropriately a member of the U.S. military was being treated by their apartment complex (This was <8 months after 9/11 and it was in Virginia Beach, huge military area). I sent my list to them and told them that if these problems were not resolved my next option was going to be to call up the local media stations and find out what they thought about the unacceptable living conditions and the property managers treatment/attitude.

Needless to say that same afternoon the property manager knocked on my door with 3 maintenance personnel and asked me to personally walk all four of them through the apartment and show them every thing I would like done. Amazingly enough she was nice to me from that point forward and I never had any trouble out of her again.

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Wow, that's pretty cool Milbut! I have just decided to back off a little for now. After speaking with the owner they know i'm pretty serious. If it's not fixed by the end of May then I will not pay any more rent and it will go to escrow. And I guess i'll be hitting up Walmart for a window A/C.

Honestly this is pretty exhausting mentally.

[FlyingFinn]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Wow, that's pretty cool Milbut! I have just decided to back off a little for now. After speaking with the owner they know i'm pretty serious. If it's not fixed by the end of May then I will not pay any more rent and it will go to escrow. And I guess i'll be hitting up Walmart for a window A/C.

Honestly this is pretty exhausting mentally.

If you are paying your own electric bill, I highly suggest avoiding the window unit if at all possible.

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Yeah I am....but I'd rather pay more money and not burn up. As for it not being hot, we've had a few 80 degree days here and some 70's...but here's the thing, I must leave all my windows shut during the day so if it's 72 out then my apt is about 85 when I get home.

What just really irritates me is the whole process of opening up all the blinds & curtains, then the windows all around the house, then placing some fans in the window. Then when I go to bed undoing it all. It's a big house so it's just a pain.

Plus you hear sirens, kids playing, etc and my dog barks at everything. I prefer to be able to go home, have my cave and silence. And without central air you don't get that. So it's not just about the heat but about other issues as well.

And everytime I look at my dog, Brutus, he will be lying on his side, panting and looking at me with "Nice job Hough, still no A/C..." in his eyes and I always am like "I'M DOING MY BEST!!"

[ImTellinTim]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Do you make sure to close all the blinds when you leave too? That helps.

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Do you make sure to close all the blinds when you leave too? That helps.

mine are always shut yeah

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

Here's the latest, most stalling:

Date: Thu, 6 May 2010 1112 -0400
Subject: ac repair

Shaun -

We are working with two different manufacturers to get the part here. Obviously, the promise of shipping last week did not happen. We will keep orders open with both until received. Once received you will be moved to the top of the days list or repairs.

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

They responded to the Better Business complaint. Here is their response and my reply:

REALTY SOLUTIONS RESPONDS

Business states, ''Realty Solutions recently received the complaint filed by our tenant, Mr. Shaun Hough. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to address this issue.
Under the paragraph ''Consumer's Original Complaint'', Mr. Hough states, ''My central air conditioning unit broke on March 25, 2010. Despite numerous attempts to get a repair ETA through various methods of communication with Realty Solutions I still do not have any date for resolution.
As it was explained to Mr. Hough in our numerous emails, the air conditioner is approximately 6 years old. In our attempts to repair the air conditioner, it was determined a replacement part was needed, ordered and then placed on back order by the manufacturer. I am assuming that since Mr. Hough filed a complaint with the BBB, he also provided to you copies of all of the email correspondence explaining the situation, stating the original ship date, as well as, the date provided by the manufacturer related to the backorder. Again, assuming that Mr. Hough provided you our email correspondence, you will see that we did in fact provide Mr. Hough with an ''ETA'' from the manufacturer.
Under the paragraph ''Consumer's Desired Resolution'' Mr. Hough suggests that Realty Solutions needs to work ''in a more urgent manner'' or ''hire another vendor''. As I am certain you have been able to gather from all of our email correspondence, we are waiting for the part from a manufacturer. Realty Solutions has also contracted with another heating/cooling company which has ordered this part from a second manufacturing company. It is not our desire to not repair the air conditioning unit for Mr. Hough. As noted in the email correspondence, Mr. Hough reminded me this was the number one reason that he vacated his previous rental property, their inability to repair his air conditioning unit in a timely manner. Our goal is to handle all maintenance issues in a very timely manner for our tenants. Keeping them happy will keep them as tenants. Given that Mr. Hough has not only filed a complaint with the BBB, but hired an attorney to take legal action, it is ridiculous to thing that we would not be doing whatever is necessary to resolve this matter.
Thank you for allowing this opportunity to resolve this matter.''
The complete business' response is viewable online through the link provided.
05/06/2010 jem EMAIL OTTO Forward Business response to Consumer
05/07/2010 WEB BBB RECEIVED CONSUMER REBUTTAL : (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)

MY RESPONSE

I have never received any ETA other than "7 to 10 days in the future" from Realty Solutions. I have never once gotten any communication that says "this will be fixed by xx/xx/xx date". And although I've been told time and time again Realty is working with various vendors I have seen no official documentation to that effect to support that, despite numerous requests. I have been told several times the part will ship and once (this past week) even that the part had actually shipped and then only to be told later that there was still no ETA and the part was never shipped.
I have hired an attorney due to the lack of any real ETA (firm date) for a resolution on this matter and Realty's inability to come to any satisfactory interim compromise on a solution, such as reduced rent, temporary A/C units, etc. The only compromise Realty has put forth is they have offered to release me from my lease, which I have chosen not to do as of yet. Moving forward I plan to put future rent into escrow per the advice of said attorney if this problem is not resolved by June 1.
Realty Solutions states that the central cooling unit is 6 years old and alludes to the fact that this is part of the issue finding parts for it. This raises an excellent point. I believe it would be prudent at this point for Realty Solutions to seriously consider the original recommendation by ABS Heating and Cooling (the first heating and cooling company that Realty Solutions hired to look at the unit) to replace the 6 year old unit with a new unit.

[jeremym480]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?



Wow, thing's are really heating up (no pun intended)

[ODogg]

Re: Landlord won't fix my A/C - any ideas?

haha, in more ways than one, gonna be 85 here today! that means it'll be about 95 in my house when i get home tonight. sweet! thank goodness it's dropping to 55 for a high tomorrow.