The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back

Flashback: Almost two years while living in Wymount (BYU married housing) we had an interesting day. It was Brian’s 23^rd birthday and to celebrate we both took the day off. Without going into too much detail you could say we were “enjoying one another's company.” Inconveniently, this same day was the day that Wymount desired to change all the carpeting in the apartments. Having already made arrangements for our apartment to be skipped over, we “casually” enjoyed a riveting episode of Law & Order. To our surprise, we heard a knock at the door. I jumped up and went to the back room. Without pause after knocking, someone was putting a key in the door. Brian yelled to the person to NOT COME IN, but, nonetheless, the man opened the door and waltzed right in. We of course complained to management about their lack of communication with each other and disrespect for privacy. They then put a large sign on our door saying "do not change the carpets in this apartment." But that didn’t stop them from entering our apartment unannounced AGAIN later that night. We called several people and wrote a couple complaint letters trying to remedy the situation, but we were pushed around and never taken seriously. They offered a coupon for 1 half gallon of ice cream for our troubles.  Though Brian wrestled with the ethical implications of redeeming the coupon, we got our half gallon and moved out of Wymount (and out of Provo) a couple weeks later.

We have recently moved back to Provo, and due to this incident we are wary of the contracts we sign trying to ensure our privacy. Earlier this week --  and to my dismay --  a maintenance man entered illegally into our apartment. I was home with James while Brian was at work and I had just gotten out of the shower and was of course indecent. Thinking it was Brian coming home for lunch, I headed out of the bathroom to greet him. Realizing it was not my husband I yelled at the stranger to leave and reluctantly he did. Luckily he did not come far enough into the apartment to see me. (Although if he had seen me it may have helped our case against these people even stronger---but I wasn’t about to be the sacrificial lamb!). The worker and his colleague tried to make all these excuses for why they entered the apartment trying to justify their actions---none of which did since they blatantly breached the contract. The management has been very disrespectful saying that they did nothing wrong and lying about what actually occurred. One of the workers even said that next time they wouldn’t enter the apartment without express permission from us. To which Brian retorted, “Funny, we signed a contract saying that exact thing!”

All of this to say, these people messed with the wrong tenants. Having had similar problems at Wymount and having not been taken seriously, we are not about to be walked all over again. We are forcing them to do arbitration, and potentially to court. We usually don’t make big deal about things, but I am just so sick of Provo apartment management companies taking advantage and doing whatever they want without respect for the rights of the renters.

Even if we get nothing in the end, I just want to give them a big headache and make them understand this won’t be tolerated. And Brian is really enjoying putting some of his first year law school knowledge to good use (note taking, fact checking, documenting statements, studying the contract, etc.) and he thinks the idea of arbitration sounds thrilling!

Has anyone else had problems with apartment management before? In Provo?