letter to management

i’m tired and frustrated and tired. it’s hard enough to keep up with the daily grind. there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in the day.

but at least when i’m on my way home, i know that i’ll have some peace and some solutide. even if it doesn’t come until 10pm at night. it’s something – something to look forward to.

yesterday, though, that peace was completely broken. by a letter hand-delivered from security from the site manager of our townhouse condo.

it told us that the by-law states that christmas decorations are only allowed from december 15th to january 15th, each year. honest to god, i never knew about this by-law and honest to god, i know it’s sad that we still have a fake evergreen garland wrapped around one of our poles on our front porch.

as for the christmas lights out back, we had planned on keeping up as patio lights. isn’t that what some people do?

but the thing is… i’m not exactly sure where they get off with such pettiness when they have yet to address the leaking roof situation that happened a few months ago (on a day where the snow started to melt all at once). i decided to compose a letter to them:

Dear Property Management;

I thank you for our letter to remind us about our one christmas decoration still hung up. We will most certinaly take out down this weekend.

While I apologize for our extremely busy lives which rendered this one tiny thing overlooked, I do want a chance to explain our situation.

You see, I do remember the day I had planned on taking the decorations down quite well. I remember sitting there in my office, me on my computer and my huband and his. i commented to him, “Honey, it’s about time we take down the Christmas decor…”

Unfortunately, my thought was never communicated out in full. I was interrupted by this noise… and it took me some time to figure out what that noise was. When I honed in more on the source, I realized that it was a sound not at all unlike the water droplets dripping down in rhythm onto a metal cabinet.

It was only then that I realized that water was coming from the ceiling on the 2nd floor.

“But how could that be?” I asked myself. They said that they fixed the leak in our roof a year ago. No… certainly all this maintenance fee, especially the drastic increases that have struck us these past three years, would give us at least the comforts in knowing that our management would uphold their end of the bargain.

Well, it turns out that that ‘fix’ of the roof in the previous years (which yes, I have all the emails and photos of the damages to prove from last year) was just a bandaid patch. And it was never communicated to us that the problem wasn’t actually resolved. We were only lead to believe that it was.

Don’t you hate it when you pay money to people that you find basially with-hold the truth from you? Especially in regards to your own home, which is suppose to be a safe haven. It’s very unsettling.

Fast forward to this year, I suppose I simply just forgot about the Christmas decorations. Perhaps it’s just something that didn’t seem so important to me. Petty, even, since we’ve contacted our management asking for updates about our roof situation a couple of times with no reply what-so-ever. All we were asking was for some updates and to keep us in the loop.

I assumed that the increase of over $70 a month in maintenance fee from a couple of years ago’s rate, would at LEAST improve the communication efforts from management. Sadly, I guessed wrong.

And since we have this devastating hole in our office ceiling with water damage that started to also effect the attached walls, our ceiling on the floor above and below, not at all knowing what type of mould has now accumulated in the insulation and structure of what we can not see (oh, and did I mention that my sinus headaches have increased this year not only due to the allergy season but most likely the mould spores which are extremely hard on my allergies?), it’s been a depressing state for us to come home to every day.

While you felt the need to point out our one garland outside, I suppose it is only fair to also point out some of your management faults.

One being the change of the garage opener. Rather then getting this communicated by a letter, it was posted on the outside door of our garbage bin area.

Have you ever visited that area? If so, I’m not sure if you would like to stay in that area for long. It’s pretty filthy with a not so very pleasant stench. I don’t blame this on management, of course. Garbage bin areas are never pleasant. But to expect people to stand in that area to read signs/notices is, well, I suppose I would like to know exactly who came up with this idea in regards to property communication?

When the day came where my garage opener would not work, it happened to be a cold day. My daughter (very young) was in the back sporting a fever. I talked into the intercom to the security guard and asked if he could just let me in and that I would exchange the garage door remote once my husband came home. He would have no such thing though – oh no. I was to come right away.

Well, you see, it was rush hour. And none of the parking spots outside was empty. I had no choice but to park on the sidewalk just outside of the security office. The area you sometimes use to unload things as it is lead by a ramp from our driveway/street.

Yes, yes, I understand. It was not an area to park and I assure you, I was planning to move as soon as possible. I didn’t want to take my poor 6 year old out and well, if I parked further and left her in the car by herself, that would have been child negligance. Surely your corporation does not support this type of illegal, child abuse, right?

So I did what I could only do with the poor choices.

The security guard, however, was not at all sympathetic. In fact, when I tried to explain the situation to him, he just shut the window, ordering me to move the car.

I was appalled – he wouldn’t even listen to my reason. I went home humiliated and once again, wondered how this area, this place which once prized itself in it’s advertisement as ‘luxurty townhomes’ has come to this.

Leaky roof – two years in a row. Improper communication. Not care of a sick child. All this… and yet I’M the bad one for apparently, overlooking one little thing… a Christmas garland.

Well, I do thank you for taking the time to read this very lengthy letter. I know… this is probably of little concern to you.

But remember.

I’m the client.

I pay you through my maintenance fee.

The decorations will be removed by your prescribed date but if we do not have an update in regards to our leaky roof situation, we will report you to the Better Business Bureau.

Hope you have a nice day.

Best Regards,

Shy,

PS – your garbage men never emptied out the recycyled bins as scheduled last week.