I, too, also felt that the managers, Dennis and Renee?, were wonderful caring people when we first moved in. However I've learned that they are good at giving lip service and watching out for themselves and the owner of the apartment complex, Fred Johnson. Unfortunately, in our experience they led us to believe that they were taking steps to help the problem we ran into; but in the end, they have shown to me that they have lied to cover their own backs.
The lease we signed had a non-smoking agreement. When we moved into our upstairs unit, we noticed a stench but didn't think anything of it. We eventually realized the stench came from the guy living below us who smoked weed practically all the time. The stench would constantly be there, some days stronger than others. We also noticed that there were constantly new people going in and out of the apartments. More than several occasions, they parked their cars in our parking spot.
We called the managers to come to our apt. to confirm the odor. The first time this happened, Dennis went downstairs to speak to the guy, and for a whole week the odor was nearly gone.
Then the stench returned and so we called the managers again. Dennis came up several times, convinced that he could smell it, but he could not every time. Dennis told the guy downstairs to smoke outside, but he continued to do it indoors, stinking up our bathroom and bedroom.
Dennis and Renee did call the police on the downstairs tenant. That?s when they discovered that he had a medical marijuana card, which made it a touchy issue for the managers to deal with they said. In a phone conversation, Renee relayed that the owner of the apartments could not evict him because the downstairs tenant has a medical issue and they did not want to get sued.
We told continually told them that we signed a NON-SMOKING AGREEMENT. But that did not seem to matter. We also told Renee and Dennis that the tenant downstairs was lying to them and exploiting them, since he continued to smoke, sell and distribute weed to people.
Since the managers would not take action to help the situation, we had no choice but to start looking for another place to live. What if we were allergic to the smoke, or what if we had a baby' We notified the managers that we were looking a month before we gave our final notice. We were specifically told by the officer and Renee (who relayed a message from the apt. complex owner) that we ""would not be breaking the lease"" if we moved.
I called her back again nearly 3 weeks later regarding the deposit and she said that they would not return any of it because ""you broke the lease."" When we reminded her that she told us that ""they were sorry they could not evict the tenant downstairs"" and that ""the owner will not consider it breaking the lease,"" Renee said, ""I'm sorry, I do not recall ever saying that.""
We asked for the name and contact information of the apartment complex owner and Renee said, ""I'm not at liberty to tell.""
Renee continually made it sound like they were helping us. When we voiced our frustrations and concerns, she said ""I'm bearing the brunt of it on both sides,"" as if to say she didn't have to deal with this. But the fact of the matter is THEY ARE THE MANAGERS AND ARE SUPPOSED TO WORK OUT PROBLEMS WITH THE TENANTS, which is something THEY NEVER DID.
We never wanted to cause any trouble at all in the first place. We just wanted to problem to be dealt with so that we could just get on with our lives. It came to the point that we felt that WE were the ones in the wrong, instead of the guy downstairs.
I DO NOT recommend living here at all. The managers have broken their own lease and the Washington Landlord-Tenant laws. They have continually reassured us that they were addressing our problems, but in the end they were just empty lies. If you for some reason decide to live here, DOCUMENT EVERYTHING AND MAKE/KEEP EVERYTHING IN WRITING AS THESE MANAGERS ARE UNETHICAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL.
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