JULY THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30, 2023
As a five-month resident at Penbrooke Apartments, located in Sioux Falls, SD. I quickly discovered, Office and Maintenance Personal at this complex seems to enjoy scheduling crap and taping notices to residents apartment doors such as the following:
Dear Residents, A member of our Pest Control Provider will be entering your apartment on Wednesday, August 9, 2023, after 8:00 am to conduct an inspection. Please have all areas accLY essible for this inspection. I made it a point to be home. Upon letting the man into my apartment, I asked what are you looking for? Roaches he responded as he walked into the kitchen, briefly looking around and left. What a joke!
Attention Residents of Penbrooke Place. This is a 24-hour notice to enter. A member of Twisted Pair will be coming into your apartment home between Monday, August 14th , and Tuesday August 21st to install the new routers. (Something I did not request, nor did I need.) So, I made it a point to be home to meet and speak with this person. Upon letting the women enter my apartment I asked, what or you doing and why? My husband’s company got a contract with this complex to install routers in every apartment so that’s what I am doing, she replied. She quickly mounted a router close to the floorboard and plugged the cord into the wall receptacle on the right side of the Livingroom wall, which I immediately unplugged once she left my apartment.
After finding this notice taped to my door: Penbrooke Place and ICS Advanced Technologies are pleased to announce the completion of a major infrastructure upgrade for your community. Indigo Living has partnered with ICS to exclusively provide high speed internet services provided by other service providers such as Midcontinent by October 1, 2023. After October 1st, other providers on the property will be disconnected. If you are in a contract with your current provider who requires you to furnish a letter providing exclusivity, this letter should be acceptable. If not, please reach out to ICS Advanced Technologies at 515-268-4000. I usually read and file these notices in my Penbrooke folder in my file cabinet and never give it another thought.
However, this notices was different: Not only were managers forcing their decision to upgrade their property by installing router/internet service on the backs of residents, but they were also adding an additional utility expense to residents rent and dictating how much residents will pay. Based on my observations and eviction notices taped to doors, some residents were struggling to pay his/her current rent. Then, managers makes it worst by sending the following 30-day notice:
On October 1st you will now be billed $50 per month for the Internet Service per the lease agreement and this 30-Day notice of increase. The internet charge will first appear on your November Utility Statement. I had enough!
Now, I am pissed… How dare these managers demand apartment residents cancel internet/router services they might can afford with his/her current provider and pay for a service they did not request? Further, as a traveling writer my router and dish service is mobile. Not only does it run all of my office equipment in my motorhome it does the same in apartments, homes, and motels. As well as, when I sit outside my motorhome working or watching television.
I must admit. I thought my days of ensuring residents were treated fairly was behind me until September 4, 2023, I decided to write a letter to the properties management company requesting copies of Housing Laws that gives them the authority to charge Apartment-Owner Expenses such as Pest Control, Sewer, Trash, and their personal selected Router and Internet provider service as Utilities to be paid as a rent attachment by residents.
I detest property-owners and management companies taking advantage of apartment residents using unfair rental scamming tactics. I tried to turn a blind eye, pay my rent, and ignore everything else. After seeing so many rent eviction notices taped to residents doors monthly and observing tired residents returning to our parking lots with three or more young children in tow. Vehicle bumpers, mirrors, exhaust pipes hanging and/or broken vehicle widows not being repaired. As well as vehicles sitting on parking lots with flat tires monthly. I had to acknowledge these residents are rent poor and struggling because of rent fluctuations. Not because of the economy but due to owner and management company greed.
Further, I am a retired federal nationwide property inspector, and these expenses has always been an owner expense as well as the cost of during business in the housing industry. Otherwise, tenants are paying owners business expenses, and he/she uses this money to pay for these and other monthly apartment complex services, while claiming these monthly service payments were out-of-pocket expenses for them as owners and management companies. Thereby allowing both to claim these expenses as tax deductions on his/her tax returns. Not fair at all!
After not getting a response from Penbrooke Place Apartment’s management company, Hubbell Property Management, LLC located in West Des Moines. I filed a complaint with Consumer Protection to call their attention to this matter. In hopes my efforts will benefit struggling residents.