We wuz Robbed 2.0

[countessmouse]

Well, a serious attempt was made anyway. Gunthar and I briefly hear pounding from somewhere in our building this morning. I shrug it off because there has been painting and other repairing going on in our building and nearby ones. Then I leave for work and notice someone leaving the door of the apartment next door who I assume is our neighbor who is late for work given how quickly he scampers down the stairway on that side. Wrong!

Ten minutes later, someone starts trying to kick the front door in. Gunthar is home, calmly calls 911, me and the apartment complex office, and then calmly waits for the would-be thief to get through the door so he can beat the crap out of him. (Which thankfully doesn't happen thanks to the third lock I had installed after we were robbed in October 2007.) Said thief gets tired of trying to get our door open, goes off to break into someone else's apartment, and then comes back to unsuccessfully try again. He beats it before the police arrive. Report filed.

Our metal front door is a mess. Maintenance repaired the door frame and reinforced the metal around the locks, but the entire door is warped. It doesn't meet the seal on the top third and actually moves back and forth with the locks engaged. We can't go anywhere until that damn door is fixed.

Even better? We found out from the complex manager that the owner requires her to leave our front gates open for two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening so "cars won't get backed up in the drive". Unfortunately for the owner, this is a breach of our lease and we now have terms to break it should we decide to move. I have a call in to the owner to "discuss" this situation with him. The police aren't entirely happy about this either.

I love my apartment, but two incidents like this in a year and a half is a bit too much.

Comments

Ouch!

[traceroo.livejournal.com]

But beware, property owner, a paralegal as a tenant for they actually READ the lease!

Traceroo

Re: Ouch!

[lady-eliz.livejournal.com]

LOL! I once had someone reply "oh crap" when I was discussing an issue with potential legal ramifications with them and they found out what I do for a living.

Re: Ouch!

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

*smirk*

I ran three buildings for a while as resident manager (well, I lived in one...) and inherited a particularly wily tenant... an entertainment attorney. I'm a legal secretary with about 20 years experience. Two were new-ish gated and locked security buildings and one was not.

She (and the former manager had allowed it) had struck any notice provision whatsover from the terms of the lease. That meant we had no way to tell her we needed to come in to repair stuff or do maintenance; instead, I would write her a letter to ask her permission. After dealing with her for a few years, I think she had been assaulted many years before, and while I understood her position and sympathized, it made it unnecessarily difficult to do things like replace her air conditioning filter when we did it with the other 17 units' filters.

*sigh*

When the Northridge earthquake happened, she was off at Mammoth skiing. She had grown to trust me enough that she called and asked me to enter her apartment, check her two cats and ask if anything was damaged. I duly reported that her stuff was fine except that her tv had fallen off its stand (I set it up on the floor) and her cats were under her bed but fine and had come out to sniff my hand and say hello. Some of her stuff from her upper kitchen cabinets had leaped to the floor, but I picked them up. Surprising, how little food she had-- the cabinets were almost completely empty.

At any rate, it was a tad upsetting to realize the property management company I'd worked for was the defendant in an appellate case here in California which involved the condition of the lighting of one of their buildings' garages when a woman was assaulted and raped. Even before I'd found out, damn, I made sure all my light bulbs and ballasts were replaced asap and our doorways/locks were up to spec and even made sure the boiler for the building was oiled once per quarter (that was a hideous discovery, when the boiler blew, so to speak, and we had thousands of gallons of water leaking everywhere in the garage). Y'see, no one had ever told any of the approximately 150 managers that the boiler bearings needed to be oiled every so often.

*sigh*

I am glad I no longer do that. It was something to do for a roof over our heads when our two kids were very small-- we had a beautiful, huge two-bedroom, two-bath apartment in West Los Angeles at a hugely discounted rate; we paid anywhere from $125/m to $325 depending on what we'd taken on for our duties vs. the $1400/m the apartment was worth. Even with the crash in the real estate market, that apartment would currently rent for about $2400/m.

[shonao.livejournal.com]

Oh, holy hell.

McG should have unlocked the door. That way it would be leagal hog-tying.

You guys need to move to another complex at this rate! What if this happens while we're at GW?!?!?

They need to install cameras in the breezeway, too.

[lady-eliz.livejournal.com]

Gunthar was rather disappointed that the door held. ;)

Yeah, the GW issue has me worried as well. I always notify the complex when we're going to be gone for an extended period of time, but the pet sitter only stops by twice a day. If they don't check, then they won't know there's a problem unless she calls them.

[shonao.livejournal.com]

Wow...this really isn't cool...

I hope your chat with the owner is fruitful. There is a reason people move into gated communities.
Being robbed then almost robbed again inside of a year is not one of them.

[fieryredhead.livejournal.com]

Not good at all! Heres hoping your chat with the owner brings some changes!!

[kaiefire.livejournal.com]

That is scary as hell!!!

Yikes!!

[glindanorth.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you are both OK and that they didn't actually get in. Anyone who would make that much of a racket trying to break in doesn't seem a) very bright; and/or b) in their right mind. I hope you can move soon!

[perilousknits.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you didn't lose anything other than a front door this time. I hope you guys can find another place soon, because even if the manager changes the gate policy, I just wouldn't trust them not to do something else stupid later on.