Pipe Burst in My Apartmnent over the weekend
Yurp....sucks pretty bad. On the 3rd, which coincidentally was mine and my girls anniversary, me her and my roommate were having a party for about 20 people in celebration of the anniversary and the 4th and whatever excuses we could come up with to have a party. We were all at the pool when people started saying they were hungry I got out went down to the apartment and fired up my electric grill to start cooking. I was on the deck my roommate and a friend of mine were inside the house and after about 10 minutes I heard them screaming.
The handle for our kitchen sink is actually the wrong one and doesn't stay on very well and so when I poked my head in the door, All I could say was water spraying everywhere and I just thought that the whole thing had bust and that was where the water was coming from. When they told me that wasn't it I realized the water wasn't spraying upwards but was coming downwards from the fire extinguisher and from everywhere else in the ceiling. Unfortunately right below where all the water was coming from, was my tv, my custom surround sound system worth about 10K, my new xbox, etc. etc. I immediately had all the power in the apartment cut and started looking for a water shut off valve in the apartment as well as calling emergency maintenance. After looking for a water shut off valve in the apartment for a few minutes and not finding one and not hearing anything back from the emergency maintenance people, I called the fire department.
45 Minutes after I called the emergency maintenance line someone showed up. He opened the door and saw what was going on and said "Let me get my boss on the phone and find out where the water shut off valve is". At this point I really began to panic. How does this guy not know where the shut off valve is. 15 minutes after that, the fire department showed up. It took an additional 20 minutes but finally the fire department figured it out and we got the flow of water shut off. Original assesment was that the water feed for the fire supression system had burst. What we latter found out was that the main water line had come apart at the joint. 2 hours after the incident occured the Maintenance Supervisor shows up and gets the Property Manager on the phone for me. At this point it's 1:30 in the morning. I'm exhausted, and upset and trying to deal with 20 people from the party keep my girlfriend calm, the fire department, the maintenance people, and the clean up crew so needless to say I was agitated slightly.
I get on the phone with the complex manager and begin to try and explain the circumstances of whats going on. She became rude and abrassive, wouldn't let me finish a sentence and threatned to hang up on me multiple times. I didn't curse, I didn't raise my voice nothing. Finally I told her that I had gotten her number and would get in contact with her and let her know where would be saying and she informed me at that time that I would not be allowed to contact her directly. By about 4 I had enough and went home after sending everyone else away and getting a few things taken care of.
The next day I went back with an engineer who looked at it and his assesment that the way those pipes were repaired they were streched to far and they were always going to bust.
Tuesday we went into speak to the proper manager who wasnt there do to a family emergency. She had one of the lease agents come in and talk to us and tell us she would get in contact with us that day and that we could have the apartment they gave us access to for the same rate I am paying now. We left there and went to corporate and received a phone call from the property manager who again repeated the offer from that morning as well as said that it was authorized by corporate and that our moving expenses would be paid as well.
Wednesday, their own contractor came by and looked at it and said, the pipes had definitely been worked on as you could see the ceiling patch work. Later in the day, they pulled all the baseboards out and we found not only mold and mildew in the drywall, but old black mold that was there.
Yesterday we had the city code inspectors come out to look at the place with the property manager and they said the same thing as well. What they also said however, was that the pipes didn't have enough glue on them when they were repaired the last time and thats why they burst. They also said that although they had ripped out all the padding, they shouldn't have put the carpet back down while they were trying to dry it out because it wouldnt get dry. I pretty much lost it at that point. I went to my property manager and asked her how much longer it was going to take before I could speak to someone who could make decisions and make me whole again and when were they going to rectify the repairs. At that point she kicked both me and my roommate out of her office.
We left and immediately went to coporate again where we were finally able to sit down with us and we found out we had basically been lied to from the get go. No offer on the other apartment was ever extended to us nor were the moving costs going to be covered. They did offer to cover our moving costs for moving into another property in their network but nothing is as nice as were living in unless I want to move to midtown. Also they claim that no repairs were ever made to the apartment and that the city inspectors told them that they were doing an excellent job on the repairs. They said their risk management people would get in contact with me to compensate me somehow on my property damage but I doubt I'll even get half of what I'm out.
Originally Posted by Alan®
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