Howdy.
Some of you might recall a post I put up a little while back detailing the situation with our apartment complex.
Long story short, they had determined that we were in violation of our lease in that we only officially were permitted one of the dogs and the apartment had a pungent pet odor (aka cleaner). This was back in June, and they had mentioned a follow-up inspection to see if the problems had been fixed.
Well, June ended, July came and went, and there was nothing. No follow-up, no notices, just them handing over lease-renewal information. We found this to be interesting, but mostly normal procedure (although I continue to find it funny that you'd offer lease renewal paperwork to someone you're actively trying to evict).
At this point, there wasn't much interest in renewing, but we felt like if they were going to be backing off, we'd at least consider it.
Well, they didn't actually back off. While I was away in Florida at GCX, they left another notice on the door for a follow-up inspection. The inspection was scheduled for Monday, the day before I got home. This left my roommate in a predicament. She had to work, and Kylie would possibly be home alone. As she did previously, she emailed the office and mentioned she'd be home on Wednesday, if they wanted to stop by then. Otherwise, a kid would be here home alone.
To our surprise, they did in fact show up on Wednesday, however, they provided absolutely ZERO indication that they were going to do this. They didn't respond to the email, nor did they put any notice on the door. They just didn't show on Monday, and instead came by on Wednesday.
I was there for this one.
When I tell you the property manager IMMEDIATELY fixated on the one dog, I mean it. She once again said we were only approved for one dog, then started going on about him being a pitbull and those weren't allowed here. The roommate asked where his paperwork was, and the property manager just kept saying "we don't have it."
She said they'd come back the following Monday, and once again repeated the whole pitbull nonsense to us as she left the apartment, while also making sure to throw out a whole thing about there being a pet odor in the apartment (although she avoided using the word pungent).
We got to work (AGAIN) and got the place cleaned up. We vacuumed, steam-cleaned, dusted, and did all the laundry. We then repeated the process again just to be thorough. The litter boxes weren't bad, but I cleaned those again anyway. We steeled ourselves for whatever nonsense they were going to throw at us.
They didn't show.
They then left us another series of notices, this time telling use to voluntarily leave the premises, otherwise eviction proceedings would begin. After an initial period of shock, my roommate got to work. She started looking EVERYTHING up pertaining to the apartment. We looked at the renewal paperwork. We had a friend look at it too, and this friend noticed some interesting details.
The first thing was the complex was not regularly giving 48 hours of notice to come in. The second, and more important detail, is that under Ohio's low-incoming housing standards, they have to provide 30 days to "cure" any minor violation before they can start threatening with eviction. This had not been officially done.
We also started combing our own records, looking for anything that could help prove that something was amiss with the dog. While we didn't find much, we did notice that the residential portal had both dogs listed. This was helpful because residents can't actually manipulate that, someone in the office had to. This means that when this portal was created 6 years ago, both dogs were registered.
I remain convinced that they either have the "missing" documentation and have been lying about it, or they "destroyed" it when they decided he was a pitbull mix. I will reiterate that both dogs were absolutely registered at move-in 10 years ago.
The real funny thing was when we went online to check some stuff, we noticed $2000 in charges were on our account. None of it was actually rent, but rather pet fees and fines. For both the "unregistered" dog, and for Arbalest. They actually went and charged double sets of fines and fees. This made the stakes for proving that both dogs were registered even higher. Arby we understand. The dog? Not so much.
Additionally, given that my roommate had a letter from her provider that had been given to her 6 years ago recommending a therapy animal, she decided that she was going to register at least the one dog and Arby as Emotional Support Animals (ESA). When registering Ogi, she found she could register both dogs at the same time, so she did that, then registered Arby separately. And before someone starts with the "oh, 3 animals for therapy?" bullshit, yeah. Arby calms down my kid, who does suffer from panic attacks. Ogi calms her sister down, and Shenzie, the other dog, calms mom down.
She then gathered everything she had discovered and started compiling emails. She pointed out all three animals were being registered as ESA's, she pointed out that she had provided a letter to the office 6 years ago about having a therapy animal, she pointed out how Ogi was in the resident portal, which means he was documented at least 6 years ago. She pointed out how they weren't abiding by the low-income housing standards, as well as a few other things that had been discovered.
She sent all of that in.
A few days later on a Tuesday, there was a notice on the door that there was going to be an inspection the next day (once again violating the 48 hour notice section). The inspection notice only listed "pet odor" as the reason behind the inspection, which was interesting since there was so much fixation on the one dog. So Tuesday night, I vacuumed and steam-cleaned the carpet again. We made sure everything was in good order. I was tired, but felt good about the condition of the apartment.
They did not come by.
A few days after that, there was another notice in the door. This was congratulating us on our anniversary of being in the apartment, and a reminder to send back the paperwork indicating if we were going to be renewing the lease or not.
It was so bizarre.
Now, in no way shape or form are we of the belief that we're in the clear. After all, the initial lease renewal paperwork was in between an inspection and the eviction threat. But this whole situation reaffirmed that we weren't going to stay here.
Kylie's mom applied for a mortgage and was granted an initial preapproval. There was an attempt at including me to try to bump up the preapproval, but my credit is truly in the dumpster right now, so it didn't really help (we'd need double the current down payment we could provide). But she has an initial approval, which means the process of looking for a house could begin. Whether we find something that fits what we'd want that we could move into before November remains to be seen, but we're at least able to look.
There are two back-up options if it doesn't work out though. There's a townhouse up for rent down the road which would work, plus another apartment complex we could theoretically go to. While we don't want to rent, if we have to, we will. It'll cost more, but it would also provide more space. The hope is to find a house though. We don't mind a bit of a project (in fact, we've often talked about preferring something that needs a little love that could infused with our own unique take), but the foundation, electric, and plumbing needs to be in good order.
We'll see how this shakes out, but for now, here's hoping that the complex has at least decided to back off for the next couple of months. I'm fully expecting another notice to be in our door though, since that's been the trend.
I'll post another update when we have some sort of idea what's going to happen next.
