My wife is a "Travel Nurse" which means she chooses her assignments which can last for as little as 13 weeks or her contract can be extended if all parties are in agreement. I am retired and accompany my wife because it does give us the opportunity to travel and she gets paid very well while we can see parts of the country that we normally wouldn't see.
The agency that my wife works for picks up the rent on our lodging as well as the utilities. As a result I don't feel that I have a whole lot of rights when it comes to complaining but as a tenant I do have the right to expect that I will have hot water, on demand.
We moved in the last week of September and had to leave on a family emergency within the next couple of days. Now this is where the entire episode begins. Upon our return we had no hot water and had to take cold showers. We reported this to the rental office and they sent in a maintenance person to "adjust" the water temperature. Now keep in mind that the complex is on a boiler system and the apartments do no have individual water heaters. So exactly what is being adjusted?
Over the next 50 days we either had lukewarm water or no hot water at all. And I'm not talking just about in the morning, I'm talking entire days. I kept a log of this problem noting the date, time, water temperature, time reported to the rental office and the dates and times that I had contact with the Region Manager who oversaw the apartment complex operations.
We were told two problems, in conjunction with each other, were causing problems with the boiler system. The first problem was that the boiler system was in need of repairs and that the parts were on order. The second contributing problem was because the apartment complex houses apporximately 80% college students that attend New Mexico State and they all take showers at about the same time in the morning.
The first excuse I can understand but not the second. My response to the Rental Management was if a hotel with 1500 rooms that is on a boiler system can provide hot water, on demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, why couldn't an apartment complex with a little over 400 units do the same thing? Especially when the complex has multiple boilers?
Well, this obviously pissed them off. The last time I complained about the hot water they told me that the boiler system was being repaired and when I questioned when we could expect to have hot water they couldn't tell me. When I pressed them for an answer the said they would have to call me back. And they did call back, telling me that we would have hot water by noon that day.
Within an hour after my telephone conversation my wife got a call from the agency that she works for. Apparently the Rental Manager called the agency and wanted to evict us due to my "harrassment" about their hot water system. The Manager stated that I was the only person in the entire complex that had a problem with the hot water. As a result this placed my wife's job in jeapordy but the agency made an agreement with the Manager that if I stopped with the "harrassment" we would be allowed to stay until the end of her contract.
Obviously, this pissed me off. I e-mailed the individual responsible for providing housing at the agency and explained the problems we have had with the hot water and I forwarded to her the information log that I had kept over this period of time.
She in turn contacted the Region Manager who verified my complaint and told the agency that I had a "legitimate" right to complain about the hot water.
I also informed the agency that I could walk out my apartment door right then and there and come up with at least five other tenants that have complained about the same problem. And they are not residing in the same building that we are. Everyone that resides in our building at one time or another has filed a complaint about the lack of hot water. Hell, the Manager has even gone as far a offering a lower monthly rate to compensate for the lack of hot water or has moved that tenant into another building that doesn't have this particular problem.
Subsequently, this apartment complex has a damn liar for a Manager, has a maintenance department that has no idea what they're doing and unless you're in tight with someone on the Management Staff you ain't going to have hot water.
Thankfully we're moving in a week. We do like the city of Las Cruces but we can't stand the Management that lies and refuses to repair things because they don't want to spend any money. It must take a cut out of their year end bonus.
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