urgent Help:apartment manager abused my child; advice needed for renter rights and homebuying near West San Jose (Westmont: 2013, condo)

[snoopyworld]

Summary: Apartment manager abused my child and refused to fulfill maintenance responsibility.Where shall we turn to for help???

Here's what happened: We're a professional couple with a little kid who will soon be entering K. We moved to San Jose from Utah after graduate school in 2013, and experienced a "culture shock" with the red hot RE market. We now live in an old apartment in West San Jose for its good location and the 10 API elementary school. We have lived here without trouble for 1 year until this past Thursday, when the manager's husband abused my child. I was standing beside the pool, and heard him yell at a group of kids who were building happily with a small pile of pebbles and asked them to put the pebbles down. My son refused to do so, and the manager's husband grabbed his arm, roared at him, and pulled him so hard that my son hit his nose on his hand, and his nose was bleeding! I ran to them and scolded the manager's husband for being so rough with young kids, and he roared "I do whatever on my property". I called police, and told the police what happened. When we were waiting for the police to come, the manager of the apartment showed up. She was an Asian woman in her 60's, and before I moved into this apartment I read lots of reviews on Yelp about how rude she was. She was apparently pissed off after she heard that I called police, and threatened me that she would terminate my lease. I asked, "Did we break any rules? Since when can't little kids play with pebbles?" She simply turned her back and walked away! Such a rude woman!

After the police came, I told them what happened. They asked, "what do you want to get out of this?" I said, "I need him to apologize, and make sure he treat kids with respect in the future. Not only my kid, but other kids as well." They went to the manager's husband, came back and said that he apologized, saying he was not meaning harm, just want to make sure kids not throwing pebbles later (they DEFINITELY was NOT throwing at that time). The police assured me that this shall never happen again.

Besides this accident, they were not responding to the maintenance. The fridge in my kitchen has stopped working for 3 times, and hundreds dollars of food had spoiled and have to be thrown away. Every time after I called they would send a worker over, but he only temporarily fix the problem, and after 2 weeks the fridge would break down again. I requested a new fridge, but they apparently was ignoring my request.

I was so frustrated with all of these. Hubby and I have considered to buy a house, but it may take a while since the market is so crazy and we only have a down payment of 150K as of now.

Thanks so much for your patience of reading my long post, and here are my questions:
1) As a renter, how may I protect my own rights? What do I do, or who do I turn to when they are not fulfilling the maintenance responsibility of replacing the fridge? How do I make them refund money on the spoiled food (and lots of cleaning afterward)?
2) I think the manager was just making empty threats for "lease termination", since we always pay rent on time and never break any rules. However, what rights do California renters have? Who shall we turn to, and where can I find information on this? How do I file a complaint about the apt. manager?
3) Due to our bad experience with the apt. manager, we will NOT attend the neighborhood 10 API school but send my son to a nearby private school so that we don't need to be stuck here. So if elementary school is not a concern, is it reasonable for us to look for a starter home condo/townhouse with a budget of $600-700K and down payment of 150K within the boundary of a 7 API high school (such as Prospect high, Westmont high) in zipcode 95130 or 95117? I know I may be asking too much, but I really hope my kid can live near West san jose so he could still be with his friends.

Any of your feedback/suggestions would be highly appreciated! Thanks again!

[snoopyworld]

I am also curious how would you have dealt with the manager's child abusive accident??

[Rubi3]

Originally Posted by snoopyworld

I am also curious how would you have dealt with the manager's child abusive accident??

Where does the manager's child abusive accident appear? I see nothing.

[snoopyworld]

It was in my post:

I was standing beside the pool, and heard him yell at a group of kids who were building happily with a small pile of pebbles and asked them to put the pebbles down. My son refused to do so, and the manager's husband grabbed his arm, roared at him, and pulled him so hard that my son hit his nose on his hand, and his nose was bleeding! I ran to them and scolded the manager's husband for being so rough with young kids, and he roared "I do whatever on my property".

[snoopyworld]

Where can I file a complaint about the management (e.g., owner), any specific website for Santa clara housing? Even if we move out after buying a house, I want to make sure other kids are not abused and treated with respect.

[thetrb]

In my opinion it sounds like the police handled this pretty badly. If a child bleeds after being pulled by an adult then they should do more than just ask him to apologize. Now that this has happened I don't know though whether there's anything left that you could do. You could certainly contact an attorney, but I doubt that this will help you much.

About your other question: 700k will give you a nice townhouse, I would start looking around in the area where you want to buy. You might not get a very huge / new townhouse, but at least a decent one.

[HDL]

You're brand new to posting on City Data forums and you're looking for advice from people that you don't know, who are only hearing your side of the situation ?

My first thought is, if you saw bad reviews of the landlord on Yelp, then why did you choose to rent there at all???

Secondly, why weren't you watching your child more closely? Children shouldn't be playing with rocks around the pool and if the Manager's husband was getting upset about it, then why weren't you over there getting your child before it came to what you stated about the Manager's husband grabbing your child?

Only reading your side of the story, where you don't state that your son or you did anything improper, 5 posts in a very short span of time where you come across as impatient waiting for people to respond and the fact that you called the police over something so minor in the big scheme of things going on in this world, leads me to think that you might have overreacted and should definitely start looking to buy a home rather than renting if you can afford to .

I can't give you legal advice, but I think that with the rental market as hot (and expensive) as it is in the Bay Area, it might behoove you to cool your jets and calm down a bit instead of going on the attack right now. Your child is fine and you will be too. Focus on finding a home to buy by using Redfin, Zillow and Craigslist and then finding a good Realtor.

Best of luck to you and your family! Things will get better !

[snoopyworld]

Thanks for your reply. First, I chose the apartment because of location and the good school, even though the Yelp reviews were all negative. Second, children were NOT playing beside the pool. They were playing in a safe place and doing nothing wrong. Third, the manager's husband did admit that he's wrong in front of police and apologized. The police thought I did the right thing, not over-reacting.

I am posting here since the manager was threatening of lease termination after I called police. I need to know how to protect myself. Although I am trying to buy a house, I want to make sure I can still renew the lease if I want to.

Originally Posted by HDL

You're brand new to posting on City Data forums and you're looking for advice from people that you don't know, who are only hearing your side of the situation ?

My first thought is, if you saw bad reviews of the landlord on Yelp, then why did you choose to rent there at all???

Secondly, why weren't you watching your child more closely? Children shouldn't be playing with rocks around the pool and if the Manager's husband was getting upset about it, then why weren't you over there getting your child before it came to what you stated about the Manager's husband grabbing your child?

Only reading your side of the story, where you don't state that your son or you did anything improper, 5 posts in a very short span of time where you come across as impatient waiting for people to respond and the fact that you called the police over something so minor in the big scheme of things going on in this world, leads me to think that you might have overreacted and should definitely start looking to buy a home rather than renting if you can afford to .

I can't give you legal advice, but I think that with the rental market as hot (and expensive) as it is in the Bay Area, it might behoove you to cool your jets and calm down a bit instead of going on the attack right now. Your child is fine and you will be too. Focus on finding a home to buy by using Redfin, Zillow and Craigslist and then finding a good Realtor.

Best of luck to you and your family! Things will get better !

[snoopyworld]

Thank you for the reply!

Originally Posted by thetrb

In my opinion it sounds like the police handled this pretty badly. If a child bleeds after being pulled by an adult then they should do more than just ask him to apologize. Now that this has happened I don't know though whether there's anything left that you could do. You could certainly contact an attorney, but I doubt that this will help you much.

About your other question: 700k will give you a nice townhouse, I would start looking around in the area where you want to buy. You might not get a very huge / new townhouse, but at least a decent one.

[jk88cal]

1) Maintenance request.

The best route is to speak with the manager on this issue. However, given conflict you had, not sure how that will go thru.

You seem to think that you are entitled to a new fridge. I doubt that is a reasonable expectation.

You have to separate between negligence, if they ignore your request or waited days to respond, which makes the living condition unlivable. Versus they promptly responded but the item just happen to broke down 3 times.

2) Lease.

In your 1st post, you mentioned manager threatened to terminate your lease. In later post, you talked about renewing your lease.

They cannot terminate your lease unless you did something to violate the lease agreement.

As for renewing your lease, they do not have to honor that, especially in cities that do not have rent control.