I’d like to say it’s rare to find a mega-corporate conglomerate that has discovered a new and innovative way to make a few extra bucks legally, and it’s because those types almost always go about it the wrong way. We rarely dip in to consumer protection stories, but the management at Heatherwood Apartments has preyed on its poor, working class tenants like no professional agency I’ve ever seen, and it’s a can of worms, so we’re ready to dip into it. Not because we can, but because we must. These guys are corporate crooks, and they’ve taken advantage of thousands already, and they need to know the world is watching.
According to every tenant I’ve interviewed, they work pre-lease negotiations fraudulently, and write the leases themselves in ways that strain legal believability.
Leases All Wrong
Without covering it in tremendous detail, there are several clauses written in to the lease agreements that are completely illegal. I consulted with an attorney based in Woodinville, Washington, and though he asked not to go on the record by name, he spent a half-hour reviewing the standard, 70-page (yes, not joking, it’s really that long) and found at least six clauses written in that are not legal. The most prominent of them include that they mandate professional carpet cleaning and repainting of the walls, even if you stay there for ten-years… sound fishy? It isn’t fishy, it’s legally indefensible.
Maintenance Non-Existent
When I first heard about the story and came out to check it out for myself, I was warned that apartment maintenance was poor. This was in July, and I took careful note of some of the more obvious damages around the property when I went out… as of going to press, it’s nearly October, fully three-months later, and everything I noticed broken then remained broken. There was a fire on a balcony in the B building, and it remains torn up to this day. There was tagging and vandalism against Dumas Road, and it remained. There was lesser burn damage to the K building and a broken light fixture… none of it was fixed during the three-months from the time I first turned up until immediately before going to press.
When a tenant says they don’t address damage, repair and maintenance complaints in any sort of a timely manner, I can’t know if it’s true or not. What I do know is that when you can see horrible damage from a passing drive-by, they don’t fix even fix that. That’s the outside where everyone can see it. If you’d like a hint what’s going on inside, check to see the garbage on the balconies and the destroyed mini-blinds in the windows.
Move-outs Even Worse
From the time I accepted the story until press was a very short time. I only had the chance to find three tenants who were moving out during that time, and luckily they were all very cooperative. They each found the exact same experience, and it shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise because it was the exact thing they’d all be warned would happen before they even gave notice.
Here’s how it works. No matter how clean you leave it, no matter how absent any damage may be, you will not see back much more than a few dollars from your deposit… unless you have a co-signor with good credit, in which case it will go over it by a mile, and your co-signor will be asked to throw in another thousand or so. Your co-signor is unlikely to dispute it because they have perfect credit and in many cases more money than sense, so the check will be cut regardless of what’s right.
In one case there was no damage, tons of photographic and video evidence, and so they offered a refund of $19. The tenant cried foul, so they upped it to $79, hoping that would stave legal action, and perhaps it will, but where did the extra $60 come from if not some strange corner of Imagination Land?
To Hell with the Disabled
What started me down this road in the first place was the case of “Linda”, a CP tenant in an electric chair. Late one night her upstairs neighbor came home, but he saw something strange downstairs and stopped in to find out what was going on. She had locked herself out and Heatherwood Management refused to come let her in. They told her to call a locksmith (she explained she had no money for it) or wait outside until morning for them to let her in… that’s what she was doing, by herself, in her wheelchair… He saw a need and paid for a locksmith to come out and let her back in.
Mind you, the locksmith said it would cost $55, even though it was $168, and he didn’t even pop the lock, but rather drilled it and left it unsecure. None deny what he did was right, and that no one with a conscience could let such a moment pass, but when he went to management to seek reimbursement, they told him he’d been a sucker, and that’s just how it goes… nice. This part of the story has been fact-checked with Linda herself, and it’s 100% legit.
Heatherwood may not hate the disabled, but they sure as hell have no reason to make their lives anything less than miserable, even when it’s their exact job to do so.
Charito Domingo is just one of the many managers that live on-site, but none of them could be bothered to get off the couch for five-minutes to do the unlock. Is that the management you want for anything at all, let alone the place you live?
Old Guard Same as the New Guard
Some of the calls I’ve placed have seen comments tempered by the statement that “the old management wasn’t very good, but the new management is different.” All I know of the Heatherwood management from before last summer is what I’ve read online in reviews, but from what I can tell, no matter who is in charge, the dictates are the same. I don’t care who is in charge, if the evil and illegal policies come from the ownership, it doesn’t matter who management is. So if the new management is as bad as their evidence appears, and it isn’t because they are personally terrible people, then it means that it doesn’t matter who’s in charge, it’s going to be terrible… and it is.
Worst Attempts at Media Control
Because there is a thing called “the internet” there have been tons of complaints about the apartment. Worse than that, management has gone in to file compliments and rebuttals to complaints. Sometimes they pretend they aren’t management, and other times they admit who they are (though they later use the same monikers to pretend they aren’t management.) Either way they make it painfully obvious who they are, and their attempts at damage control and situational diffusion are pathetic at best. I’ve worked as a journalist for many years and I’ve never seen worse attempts at trying to make a company look good from insiders than this, and I worked at Washington Mutual.
