Living in ParkMerced

This is a posting about my experience living in ParkMerced from July 2006 to Jan 2008.

I have created several posts because I didn't want this to be one long post. However, since I did that, if you want the beginning, it's the bottom most post. and chronologically, it goes from bottom up.

This is my sharing to those of you who want to move in to ParkMerced. 

For anyone from ParkMerced who wants to discuss any of the events, please leave your details in the comments field and I will contact you.

I'm truly not interested in listening to another apology. So, don't bother if that is all you are offering me. I'm still interested in either getting my stuff back or getting some kind of monetary compensation for that stuff... without having to deal with your damn lawyers.

Happy reading and if you still decide to live there.... good luck!

And I thought it was the end

My wife and I left the country. My wife in early January. Myself the day I moved out of ParkMerced.

The security refund was sent to a forwarding address.

On the security refund, there were 2 $100 deductions for removal of a couch and a bed.

I had to be at the airport at 7am. I left ParkMerced at 6:30am with instructions to a friend to come back, remove the couch and bed and then close up and turn in the keys.

My friend is in possession of the couch and bed because HE PURCHASED IT FROM ME.

So, what is this couch and bed that ParkMerced is charging me for?????

I'll probably have to deal with their lawyers again to settle this issue and it's not worth $200.

The end is near

Somewhere in December, my wife got notice that she was going to get an overseas posting. We decided we were going to move out of ParkMerced. We turned in our notice and our last day was to be Jan 23, 2008. My wife's work was going to start in early January and so she left before I did and I stayed on to take care of clearing up the apartment and tying up all the odds and ends.

Before my wife left, she paid rent and it was prorated to our last day on Jan 23, 2008.

When I arrived home from work on Jan 15, 2008. There was a note (3 pages) duct taped to our front door. Recently, the complex had been repainting and stuff so, frequently, the residents would find notes taped to their front doors to either inform them to move stuff out of the way or just to inform them that there would be painting being done on their doors/windows. I almost didn't pay any attention to the note, thinking it was one of those notices. 

However, when I saw that there were several pages, I decided to take a closer look. To my astonishment, it was a "3 day to pay or quit" notice. For those of you who have never seen/received one of these things (by the way, this is my first time ever), this is the first step toward eviction. It means you have failed to pay rent. You are now late on your rent and you have 3 days to pay. Otherwise, you leave (in their terms, "quit").

This is what occurred next.

The next day, I decided to take care of our "3 days to pay or quit" notice. In addition to the notice posted on our door, we also got a similar notice in the regular mail.

I enter the leasing office and there was one "resident relations" person helping a resident. I waited for him to get done with the person he was with and then toss (I really did toss it at him, I'm an irate customer) the notice at him. He picks it up, tells me he is going to look it up. 

He says: "It looks like you owes us $400 something (I don't remember the exact figure he quoted), how would you like to pay this?"

I say: "I don't owe you a f**king thing. We have never owed you any-f**king-thing. You all are a complete model for incompetency."

He says: " Thank you for the compliment."

He was being a smart a$$ and I was not in the mood for more of their incompetency and arrogance. I was not furious. We were leaving in a few days. But, this place had given us nothing but problems. I couldn't even vacate in peace. I am not saying my actions/speech are appropriate and do not advise anyone to repeat them. But, in continuation...

I say, very loudly and angrily: "Don't be a smart a$$. This is our notice of our intent to leave (and I toss that at him too) because you guys are just one big f**k up. This is the amount the notice says we owe and this is what we paid. If you all are so incompetent and can't get that right, that's your f**king business, not mine. Due to your incompetency, you do not have any right to embarrass us by posting a "3 days to pay or quit" notice on our door. Fix it!! (even though I'm not really sure what there is to fix)

He says: " If you don't calm down, I will have to ask you to leave."

(another sign of their extremely well trained staff. Instead of trying to calm me down, he threatens me)

I raise my voice even more: " You can ask me to do whatever the f**k you want, but I'm not leaving till you fix this!"

At this point, there are 2 people standing at the door leading to their internal offices looking in on us. I presume they are staff wondering what's going on.

He repeats: "If you don't calm down, I'm going to have to either ask you to leave of call security."

This security is the same security that has allowed 4 cars in the parking garage I use to be broken into in the last 2 weeks. I'm terrified.

I say: " Call whoever the f**k you want to call, ask me to leave, do whatever the f**k you want to do, but, fix this problem first."

At this point, one of the ladies standing in the doorway steps forward and stretches out her hand. I refuse to shake hands with her. She does not introduce herself but asks very softly and politely: "Sir, I see you have a problem, would you care to explain what is going on to me?"

I repeat the story to her and add: "How would you feel if this was done to you?"

She immediately apologizes and gathers the notices that are on the table. While we were talking, the guy who was first attending to me actually called security, so, now there are 2 security guys behind me and more people peering in from their internal offices.

This lady waves the security guys away, waves the ever so capable person that was helping me out of the room and says she is going into the back to research this notice. She also tells me she is the Resident Relations Manager. She invited me into her office but I declined.

When she steps away, another gentleman who was peering in, steps into the room and apologizes to me. I tell him: "There are no amount of apologies that can help me remove all the bad taste I have had from staying here. We are an ideal renter. We pay rent on time. We don't call for anything and replace stuff ourselves as much as possible. We don't have loud parties. And all ParkMerced has done is f**k us over time and time again. We lose stuff that ParkMerced moves out of OUR storage and we have to deal with their high and mighty lawyers. No amount of apologies will suffice."

He apologizes again and states that he is the new manager of the entire complex and that he is not familiar with my "file".

I tell him to go look it up.

He says he will. He "promises to look into my file" and that I "will be hearing from " him.

To that, I reply: "Yeah right."

He says: "I promise"

I say again: "Yeah right."

(side bar) It's been 3 months since I have vacated ParkMerced. I have not heard from him. I have not seen any mail/e-mail from him. I have not changed my phone number nor e-mail address we have on file. And we have a forwarding address on file too.

The other lady returns and apologizes again. She tells me she will take care of the notice and take it out of our file (like it really matters to me) and that it was an oversight on their part.

I really did not gain anything out of this experience.

Storage

We use our storage space for stuff that we were probably not going to use anytime in the near future or things that we use seasonally, like camping equipment, ski/snow boarding equipment, etc.

I think we visit our storage maybe about once a month. Somewhere in June, when I went to the storage, our storage was completely empty. Initially, I thought someone had broken into our storage. However, after looking around, everyone's storage was also empty. So, the thief had to be either extremely effective, clearing out the entire storage room which contains about 15 storage cages/spaces or something else must have happened.

When I called the management, I was informed that the storage had been cleared due to some kind of retrofitting they were doing and I should have gotten a letter about it. I HAD NOT RECEIVED ANY LETTER THEY WERE GOING TO MOVE MY STUFF OUT OF STORAGE.

They gave me a number to call. The person was the project manager of this storage move and she would be able to inform me when I would see my things again.

She was an extremely difficult person to reach and after calling her quite a few times and playing phone tag with her, we finally connected. I was informed that our things would be returned to our storage space within the week and I could pick up the keys to the new locks from the management office.

By the time all this was said and done, it was already July. We were preparing for a camping trip. I went to the storage, got out our camping gear and we were on our way. Several weeks after our camping trip, I was looking for a fishing pole that I realized I had not taken with me on our camping trips. I couldn't find it. Upon further inspection, I realized that there were other items that were not returned to our storage.

Men's Custom Snowboard (purchased in 2003) - $1,280

2 deep sea fishing poles (purchased in 2001 and 2002) - $400/pole

3 other fishing poles (purchased in the 90s) - total value of maybe $250

a pair of K2 skis (purchased in 1999) - $600

4 x 1.5 folding table (purchased in 2002) - $60

Kenneth Cole leather sling bag (purchased in 1998) - $180

Samsonite sling bag (purchased in 2003) - $220

4 large boxes (3x2x2ft) of candles that we had when we used to own a business - $1,600

1 suitcase with personal effects (such as snail mail, postcards, etc) - priceless

These were some of the things that we could figure out were missing. There may have been other things. We informed the management office about it and they told us that in order to file a claim, we would have to fill out a form and send it to ParkMerced's attorney's offices in LA. At that point, I knew we this was going to be a lost cause.

However, we went ahead and filled out the form and sent it off to LA. Several days later, we got a reply from ParkMerced's attorneys stating that they needed receipts to all the items listed. Please take a look at the stuff listed above. I'm not sure about you but I don't usually keep receipts for more than a few months. I guess I should learn how to do otherwise, especially after this incident. Without the receipts, there was NOTHING they could do. I don't have receipts for any of the above mentioned items. So, I will consider those items stolen (and you know who the thieves are).

Pictures of the hole in the ceiling

These are pictures of the hole they created in the ceiling on the day they opened those holes up. 

Again, after the clean up (Friday evening), we were told that someone would come patch up the holes on Monday.

APRIL 2007

This hole still exists in the ceiling. It's been 3 months since they had opened up the ceiling to fix the leak. ParkMerced has at no point in the last 3 months contacted us to schedule a time to come patch up the ceiling. My wife specially took that first Monday off so that some one could come by to patch the hole. No one showed. And no one has showed for 3 months even though we have spoken to the management at least 3 times and have sent the management at least 2 letters.

MAY 2007

After contacting a few different attorneys and discovering it was not worth our whiles to pursue this matter in that route. I contacted the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing. I was referred to a building code inspector. I spoke with this person and he advised me on what he (and I) were going to do. 

He said he was going to contact ParkMerced and inform them about my complain. It was an official complaint with a complain number and everything. He would give them 5 days (I think) to respond and if no response or action was taken, he would come out and inspect the matter. And then we would take it from there.

The very next day after this phone call with the building code inspector, ParkMerced contacted my wife to arrange a time to come in to fix the roof.

Did we really have to go through such extents to get something as simple as this resolved? Fixing the leak was that important you needed us home asap but once that was taken care of, patching a hole in the roof that you had created was clearly not as important? So we actually had to live for 4 months with a hole in the ceiling?

The ceiling in the bathroom

January 19, 2007

1:30pm

My wife receives a phone call at work informing us that there is a leak in our bathroom ceiling.

We live in the bottom unit townhouse. So, there is someone above us. (take note of this statement as I will get back to this later)

The person who called my wife asked her how soon she could return home. My wife told them 40 mins to an hour. They told her the earlier the better.

2pm

My wife gets home.

4:20pm

A crew finally arrives to fix the leak.

** we both have to work to pay the rent that we pay on time all the time, it is extremely annoying if you tell us to get back asap but show up 2 and a half hours later **

They start pounding the ceiling and they break a hole in the ceiling right above the bathtub. The hole is about a foot and a half by a foot and a half. There is now a gaping whole right above the bathtub. They work on something in the pipes inside the ceiling and they don't get done till almost 7pm.

When the first crew is done, a second crew comes in to clean up the mess that the first crew has created. There is plaster and dust from the tearing up of the ceiling all over the bathroom but the second crew does a fairly good job of clearing most of the mess up. They then cover the hole with a plastic sheet and tell us that someone will be back on Monday to cover up the hole. (pictures of the hole in the next posting)

My thoughts: We did not complain about a leak in the ceiling. Through conversation with our neighbors upstairs, they did not complain about a leak either. In fact, it was their pipes that were leaking but it was not affecting anything upstairs. If neither of us complained about a leak in the pipes that were hidden by a ceiling for us, and a floor for the people upstairs... HOW DID PARKMERCED KNOW THAT THE PIPES WERE LEAKING?????? Or have they always been leaking but not attended to????

Washers and Dryers

Dec 10, 2006

The dryers (2 of them) closest to our townhouse are not working. My wife and I are about to go on a 3 week vacation and needed to get all our laundry done and so forth. We had to use another laundry facility in our complex for about 4 loads of laundry. We had to drive there!!

Week of Jan 1, 2007

We return from our vacation to find that dryers are still "out of order". We visit the management office to find out when this problem will be resolved and we are told that the fix is dependent on the manufacturer and when they can come out to service the equipment.

Having had many, many years in customer service, one of the things a person dealing with "customers" should never do is push off the blame. It is really none of my concern what the manufacturer does. I deal with ParkMerced and it should not take 4 weeks or longer to get something serviced.

Dryers were finally fixed at the end of January. 8 weeks after it was reported "out of order".