Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I see your points, but if you got a letter like that in the mail, wouldn't you go straight to management (or call, if that's the case) and ask? Um, excuse me, the staircase is being removed next week? Can you tell me how long it will be taken down? How many days should we expect to be vacated to a hotel over a single outdoor one story staircase?
It appears every single resident basically ignored the letter.
But yes, the management should have gone door to door an hour before the staircase was to be removed.
I agree its common sense that if you got that letter, then you would follow up for specifics if they weren't included in the letter. Which is proving my point. A good number of people didn't follow up which I think is fair to say that the management isn't providing the information that needed to be provided in the first place. I don't think its that there is a whole floor of people too stupid to follow up, I think its management that is too stupid to communicate properly or management that is trying to make life extremely unpleasant for the tenants.
I lived in a low income complex that was built with help from the government. They were required to make it low income housing for a period of time. When that time was coming to a close, they worked feverishly to get rid of the poor people so they could "remodel" that complex and sell them as "condos"...which they eventually did manage to do. In that period of time, they pulled all sorts of stunts to making living there very uncomfortable...and blamed the tenants for good measure.
Rent credit is WAY different that paying for the hotel room.....
How many of this group of people had a credit card with the available room on it for the deposit????? Just about every hotel wants a room deposit on a CC.... many may NOT have had a choice on staying put.
And I thought if the was more than one floor there needs to be more than one stairwell..... fire/building codes? Just how OLD is this building????
Something is afoul here. Giving only a week's notice, and an obviously unclear notice at that, is a huge issue. What if someone was out of town? For many people, paying up front for a hotel room for 3 or 4 days requires some time to get money together. Does everyone have a car, or do some rely on public transit to get to work? Is there a hotel that allows that to happen (I wouldn't have one near any of the bus routes I take or anywhere near work if I didn't drive).
Something similar happened to me several years ago. My slumlord landlord owned a triple decker and finally got around to repairing the rotting front steps. However, he simply put a sign up on the front door rather than contacting each of the tenants, and only gave us 3 days notice that we would have no access for 2 days. I was going through chemo at the time so when I got home from chemo on Thursday I didn't see the note (it may have been there, but maybe not) and I didn't leave the house again until work on Tuesday because I was bedridden from my illness. There were workers out front when I left for work, but no one said anything about taking down the front steps. I arrived home that evening and there were no steps - I had to call my landlord in a panic because both my medications and my cat were on the 3rd floor. He ended up rigging up a super dangerous ramp from some plywood to get me in and out of the house because the only option was climbing up a fire escape ladder. In normal circumstances, I could have done it, but not with the weakness of chemo!
Unfortunately, I didn't really feel like I had any options to fight the negligence of my landlord because I was so sick, and just moved out as soon as possible.
Considering this is a work project that falls under OSHA guidelines, even with notices to the tenants, it falls upon the contractor and his workers to ensure that the site is safe which includes, in this case, a door-to-door check to make sure no unauthorized people are on the premises of the jobsite.
Do you think when a building is demolished with explosives or a wrecking ball, at 8am on the day of, they say, "Gee, I sure hope there's no one in there." KA-BOOM!
I don't know. The stairs appear to have been an immediate hazard after partially collapsing. One person said she was slammed into the wall. It was possibly an emergency situation. There may not have been time for further notice. Some people did get notice which would lead me to believe all did. If rent credit wouldn't have worked, why didn't they call the office and work something out? The apartment could have gone door to door and knocked, but they apparently had given the 24 hour required notice.
I see your points, but if you got a letter like that in the mail, wouldn't you go straight to management (or call, if that's the case) and ask? Um, excuse me, the staircase is being removed next week? Can you tell me how long it will be taken down? How many days should we expect to be vacated to a hotel over a single outdoor one story staircase?
It appears every single resident basically ignored the letter.
But yes, the management should have gone door to door an hour before the staircase was to be removed.
An ever increasing percentage of people don't go to their box and check their mail and they refuse certified letters, either by not being able to get to their post office during business hours or saying no to the letter carrier . Not to mention literacy rates
I don't know. The stairs appear to have been an immediate hazard after partially collapsing. One person said she was slammed into the wall. It was possibly an emergency situation. There may not have been time for further notice. Some people did get notice which would lead me to believe all did. If rent credit wouldn't have worked, why didn't they call the office and work something out? The apartment could have gone door to door and knocked, but they apparently had given the 24 hour required notice.
If there was an immediate hazard, emergency services (the fire department) would have overseen an evacuation.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
