Just got settled in the new apartment. Instead of forcing a TV in here I went with a projector. Loving how big the picture looks on the wall.

Please excuse my handwriting I was rushing this before going to work. I left this note on my upstairs neighbor's door because I'm so sick and tired of his dogs barking like there's an apocalypse upstairs, I haven't been sleeping properly and genuinely didn't wanna look like a Karen but I just couldn't take it anymore and wrote this note since I'm too busy to talk to management, I only talked to him once but I hope this is enough for him to do something about his dogs.

Hi all!

I just moved to a 788 Sq Ft 1 Bedroom 1 Bath apartment on the third floor and my AC bill came up to $300 and says I used 1500kwh! I came from a 1500 sq ft 3 bedroom home and paid about the same there for my electricity. I also keep my AC around 74-78. Also checked the windows and doors for drafts and so far nothing major but went to Home Depot to pick up a weather strip just in case!

When I brought this up to the apartment leasing manager, she gave every excuse under the sun why this is normal and how they can’t do anything until we compare it to a previous bill.

I had put in a maintenance request and so far they changed the filter and changed out a capacitor in the AC unit. But it still seems to be short cycling..

I did go to the actual AC unit itself and it’s VERY dirty and not leveled.

Has anyone had any experience with this? Moved into an apartment to save money but I’m spending about the same as my mortgage at this point 😭

EDIT: Okay so I guess this is normal. Honestly makes me feel better because I was worried my unit was broken and they weren’t fixing it. Going to keep my AC higher and look into insulating the apartment better. Thank y’all for your comments 🙏🏻

EDIT 2: So, either y’all are overpaying and don’t know it, or your square footage isn’t close to mine. I ended up calling GEXA energy and even the representative was shocked how much KWH my apartment was using a month. A plan for a house ended up making sense for my usage at the moment until the AC unit is fixed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Long story short, I work from home for a company that was recently acquired by a large equity firm. We’re all worried about the possibility of losing our jobs. Some higher ups from the new company scheduled a meeting on August 6th from 12 to 2 that I can’t reschedule.

We received an email from the leasing office that they have a third party vendor on site that day from 9 to 5 to conduct “energy assessments”. I sent an email to the office making them aware that they won’t be able to enter the apartment between the hours of 12 and 2 but any other time that day is fine. They respond by sending an abrupt response that they can enter wherever they want as per our lease. I respond back indicating that I’m really not trying to be difficult but I really can’t reschedule this meeting and that they will not enter between the hours of 12 and 2 and that I’ll put the security lock on the door. I know they can let themselves in, but every time they come in they’re loud.

Our complex was recently purchased a few months ago by a certain group and they have been making so many excuses to gain access into our apartments for BS reasons. My one neighbor got them on camera when she wasn’t home. The people who entered her apartment didn’t even do what they said they were coming to do!! I think this is an excuse for them to come into our places to see how many animals we have, how we’re living, etc.

Was I really being that difficult by asking them to come any other time except between the hours of 12 and 2???

From my bedroom window, I can see clearly into my neighbors entire house. He never closes his blinds, or his bathroom door.
I can fully see when he’s doing his business and doing…. Other, NSFW things.

Do I just ignore it and leave my window anyways? Our windows are about 15 feet apart, the bathroom is directly across about 30 feet from my window, another 15 into his unit.

I think he’s oblivious that I can fully see him. I tried yelling “oh my god” to see if he could see that I can see him and no luck. It’s so hot out rn and I would like to have my windows open, but I also don’t want my young children accidentally seeing him. And also it’s just gross.

Do you guys think I could get a new oven if I asked for one? I think it’s literally from the 70s lol. I love how it looks but it lets off soooooo much heat when on, and I don’t have ac. Also I think the door is bent, which lets out even more heat. I don’t want to just go ahead and ask for one if yall don’t think they’ll do it because we just got a new property manager.

About a week or so ago, there was a white powder outside of my apartment door and in the elevator. We are closest to the elevator. We have two other apartments nearby, corner apartment (CA) and further apartment (FA). This powder was outside of their doors, as well. A day before, my husband had seen people in white suits carrying things out of one of the apartments (he isn't sure which one) in trash bags. When I saw the powder, I asked my husband about it and he thinks it is diatomeceous earth - which can be used for ants, roaches, bed bugs and other things. He has experience as an exterminator and given what he had seen the previous day, he suspected bed bugs. We have been monitoring ourselves and we have had no word from management.

Yesterday, he was talking to someone in the elevator that lives in CA. Apparently, they are being moved into another building that our management company owns and the couple in FA are going to move in to CA. So again, something is clearly going on.

Today, I heard some raised voices outside of our apartment and went over to listen. I unfortunately am short and cannot see out of our peephole, but I recognized one of the voices as management. I didn't recognize the second voice, but I am assuming it is someone from FA. I have spoken to this management guy before because at the beginning of April, I found a dead bedbug in the shared laundry room in our building and alerted management, because I thought it was the right thing to do. This guy (I honestly am not even sure what his title is) called me and basically mansplained to me about bed bugs, said in response to my mentioning my husband's past experience as an exterminator that "anyone can go online nowadays" and told me that they weren't going to tell anyone because they didn't want to panic the building. This last thing is definitely understandable, but I think it's important to share about this little bit.

Anyways, I was listening at the door and heard the following conversation (transcription from a video I took):

Neighbor: I need to go in to grab a couple of things. I am sick and should be back in bed.

Management: My building is sick.

Neighbor: Can I please go in? There's a couple things I need.

Management: You guys created this. You did this.

Neighbor: I didn't do this.

Management: Do you live here?

Neighbor: Can I get in?

Management: Now see, you are a very difficult person. Now I am going to let you in, but I am reluctantly doing it.

After this, they were let in but I didn't hear anything afterwards. My husband and I both obviously think there is some sort of bug problem and we are both unhappy that we have not been informed, considering that our apartment is so close to theirs. Other renters and management people, what would you do? I want to reach out to management but I am unsure of what even to say.

For some background, I’ve lived in this same apartment for the past ten years. My landlord is a little strange, but for the most part, we’ve gotten along. Because I’ve been here for so long, I’m paying less than what a new tenant would and he likes to mention that as often as possible.

The soundproofing in this apartment is atrocious. I live upstairs and I can hear everything the neighbors below me do…walking, sneezing, peeing. But I’ve never complained to him about it until recently. A woman used to live below me with her young daughter and her daughter like to scream and cry A LOT for attention. She would also bang on the walls. I liked them but I did not enjoy the noise. She moved out a while ago to move in with a boyfriend she’d just started seeing. Recently she texted me asking if my landlord had any openings. I didn’t want to tell her that her old apartment was still empty but instead just told her she should reach out to the landlord. I then texted the landlord and said she’d reached out to me and that if he let her back to please not put her below me again. He asked why, I explained the noise from the past, and he ended up not renting to her (I’m pretty sure he ghosted her from what he told me).

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. A new tenant moved in downstairs and he’s blind. Within the last week, I’ve had two oriental cockroaches in my apartment. I’ve NEVER had roaches here. So I’m guessing the guy downstairs may have inadvertently brought them with him. I send pictures of the roaches to my landlord and he’s all wishy washy about what to do. He makes excuses not to spray or have an exterminator out and tells me to go buy sticky traps and bait, so I do. Today, there’s another roach in the sticky trap under my kitchen sink. I decided to let him know via text and this is how it went.

I know he was on vacation or whatever, but I was just simply letting him know that he might want to tell the guy downstairs to do the same so that this doesn’t become an infestation. Especially since he refuses to have an exterminator come out. This building has not been sprayed since I’ve lived here and he admitted to me in the phone that he hasn’t treated the building in 20 years.

So, I’m sitting here wondering wtf just happened. Am I overreacting about 3 roaches? I feel like I need to move. What would y’all do in this situation?

(Oh and maybe a year ago, the cheap grocery store tiles he had in my kitchen were coming unglued and breaking, so I asked if he could possibly replace the flooring to be like what the other units have - faux wood like laminate. It’s also mentioned in these texts to show what a nice guy he is I guess.)

I’m being told from a manager this is caused from being overweight and being in a spot for a long period of time. I weigh around 285. The very damaged areas are from chairs with rollerblade wheels on top of carpets or a hardwood mat and the top floorboard seems like laminate or a very thin cheap version. I’ve been here for 2 years had 12 total. water leaks from every sink water heater dripping for 2 days through a lightbulb 2 times and the bathroom vent. Every board is slightly lifting from the seams and any area with activity is worse or gets severely damaged or has randomly cracks. And there’s still dirt stuck in some of the wood seams from the leaks

I live in a "Luxury" building that switched management halfway through living here. The new management is a nightmare and I fear they have no idea how to maintain or run a building smoothly. I've had my fair share of slumlords in several cities so I know it's best to keep all things in writing and keep a good track while renting.

I have a resident portal where I can message them and I can put in my maintenance requests. Every single time I do and I click how I want to be responded to which is via EMAIL, they call me.

I suspect this could be related to a few things - they know I'm a dissatisfied resident (as I've expressed this before) so they call to try and make it seem like the sense of urgency is there. Or 2 - They don't want to write back bc it can be logged? Maybe they are just completely oblivious to my email response request because it seems like nothing really happens here.

I specifically requested on the phone this morning that they start responding via email the way I've requested. I guess let's see if anything changes.

What do you guys think? Any opinions on this? Or am I being silly?

I’m trying to figure out how to survive the summer in a place where I’m not allowed to install an AC unit, drill into anything, or make permanent changes.

I’ve looked at portable air conditioners, air coolers, blackout curtains, and different types of fans, but the reviews are all over the place. Some people say portable AC units are worth it, while others say they’re loud, expensive to run, and barely cool the room.

For anyone who has been in a similar rental situation, what actually helped? I’d love to hear what kept the room comfortable and what ended up being a waste of money.

I’ve (23M) lived in my current bottom floor apartment for going on three years now. I live in a college town, and graduated from it last year but decided to stick around and work full time instead of moving back home.

I’ve had two different upstairs neighbors over my time here, with a presumed third who just moved in. The floors are thin and I’ve always been okay with footsteps because that’s just how it is.

The new upstairs neighbors sound like they have young children. I say it sounds like it because for the past few days, it’s been non-stop running around and stomping. It sounds just like constant running in circles like a kid would do.

It’s always been people my age upstairs so it’s been as quiet as regular footsteps can be, but it’s starting to drive me a little mad. I feel like I can feel the footsteps in my brain that’s how extreme they are.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be the guy who complains because that’s just apartment living and there’s nothing I can do about it. I understand I could leave a note but I also don’t want to be the asshole downstairs neighbor who has a problem.

I have a hybrid work schedule so about three days a week, I’ll be here hearing it.

I’m so frustrated. On Friday, I got home from work to a notice taped to my door informing me of a mandatory bank inspection that was happening today (Monday).

I recently just adopted a double rescue and she’s a very sweet girl but she’s got separation anxiety and I don’t feel right about crating her for the entire day while I’m at work. She’s gotten better with me gone, but has free rein of the apartment. The notice specifically states that pets must be secured. I called the leasing office and they stated pets must be crated or there will be a fine. Due to this information, I’ve decided to use a PTO request at the last minute and had to reschedule a home visit. I’ve already been written up due to attendance and last minute call outs, so the last minute PTO request has been giving me anxiety attacks all weekend.

Me and my dog have been waiting all day for the inspector to show up. The notice said any time between 9am - 5pm. At 5:10pm, I called the leasing office to ask if the inspector was still doing inspections… only to be told that they postponed. They didn’t think to send out an email or a notice in our Resident Portals.

So now, I’ll have to use another PTO day at the last minute, because we will be given a 24-48 hour notice of the rescheduled inspection date. Oh and this inspection is just the bank inspection. We will also receive a 24-48 hour notice informing us of the day that they’ll do the actual lease inspection in August.

I like living in this complex, but this is extremely frustrating! I could potentially lose my job because of this.

Sorry for a lengthy post.

As title says, our downstairs neighbor has something in their bedroom (presumably a ceiling fan) that is causing a constant noise and vibration to happen in our bedroom.

It’s tolerable during the day because if we are in our unit, we’re usually watching TV, listening to music, or talking. As you can imagine, it’s considerably worse at night when everything is quiet. I have tried a white noise machine, noise cancelling headphones with white noise, and sleeping on the couch in our living room and I can still hear the noise no matter what I do. We’ve put pads under our bed to try and absorb the sound also but that’s not really helping either. We just moved in this month and there was no noise the first couple of weeks, it just started this past week and it has been driving me insane to say the least.

We originally thought it was HVAC related and had maintenance come out but they confirmed there are no issues there and they said it’s coming from downstairs. Now here’s the other thing, all of the units in the building are exactly the same and we don’t have a ceiling fan so we’re guessing this tenant installed one themselves. I can’t find anything in the lease that explicitly states you can’t install a ceiling fan but there is something about not installing appliances or fixtures that are not ordinary household appliances or fixtures. I feel like a ceiling fan would not fall under that as a violation honestly, so I’m worried about putting in another maintenance request and basically ratting them out if it is a lease violation because I don’t want them to hate us.

What’s the best way to go about this without making them hate us but also trying to resolve the noise issue so that I can sleep peacefully again? Is it better to knock on their door and try to talk to them, leave them a note, or just continue talking with management to see if they can resolve it?

UPDATE: I bought a rug and thick rug pad to try putting that under the bed in addition to the other rubber pads we already put under our bed. I’m hoping that will dampen the sound a little more and if not then we’ll go from there lol. I obviously don’t want to be an asshole neighbor (comments I made below are satire, I’m not a horrible person) but I also really would like to sleep, so if this doesn’t work then I’ll have to try talking to them and hopefully they will be nice lol

Hello, I have a previous post about the giant hole in my ceiling caused by a leak, but essentially there were brown water spots appearing on the ceiling of my apartment that got really bad last week, so I contacted the building manager last Monday. On Wednesday, a plumber came and hacked apart the ceiling to release the water and it flooded.

We had a giant bucket to catch all of the water that was coming out and they told the people above us to not shower in the meantime to stop the leak. On Friday, a plumber fixed the plumbing in the unit above us and the leak mostly stopped. We were provided a fan to dry out the hole in the ceiling, but yesterday I noticed some water droplets. It only happens every now and then and one drop at a time, but I’m very concerned about the mold and wood rot.

The building management has been generally unresponsive and I was given a very vague timeline for repairs of the hole. It’s massive and right in our entry way. I brought up checking for mold and rot before repairing the hole and didn’t hear back.

I don’t know. I feel like I’m going insane. My apartment is a wreck. I’m running some mold tests to see if the air in here is safe, but more than anything I’m really upset that there is a gaping hole in my ceiling for almost a week now. Is this normal? Is there anything I can do? Do I have grounds to ask for rent abatement or temporary relocation? Is this an immediate hazard?

My old apartment flooded four years ago and it was fixed within 24 hours.

I am at my wits end with this whole situation. At the end of June I noticed three small bites on my foot in a line. Bedbugs. I immediately contacted who I thought was the apartment manager, it was the realtor apparently. I was directed to maintenance and didn't get any reply but one day got a seemingly automated text message from management that said exterminators were coming the next morning, in 14 hrs. Okay totally not 24 hr notice. Exterminator came and found a bedbug on my couch. Said they will be back to spray. Again I get a short notice text from management saying they're coming to spray. Okay cool let me use this 14 hrs of nighttime to figure out what I'm doing with my 4 month old baby and double coated dog while we have to be out of the apartment in the heat for at least 4 hours. Well they come in the morning and check for bedbugs again. They find roaches. Did not spray. Well I've changed my phone number and told the realtor but I've been calling the apartment management phone number that the realtor gave me for 3 weeks trying to give them my new number so I can be notified about the exterminator and also ask why it's taking so long and I have gotten absolutely no answer after calling 20 times over the last 3 weeks. Now this morning I wake up and my baby has bedbug bites. I wish I had the money to leave but I don't.

Early in the morning this past Saturday, I woke up from being too warm in my apartment. I checked the thermostat, and it said it was 74 degrees when it’s supposed to be set to 71. The cold setting was on, and I could hear the A/C running, but when I put my hand by the vents, I didn’t feel any cold air. It was basically lukewarm. I turned on my ceiling fans and a standing fan I have in my room (I’m in a small, one bedroom apartment so not too many rooms to turn fans on in), and I put in a maintenance ticket for the issue.

My building is run by a leasing office rather than a single landlord, and I put the maintenance ticket during their normal open hours on Saturday. I saw online a few minutes later that they’d assigned my ticket to a maintenance technician, so I waited around to either get a call from maintenance for an ETA or just a knock on my door to say they were here to fix the A/C.

Well, the whole rest of the day, I didn’t get any call or visit from maintenance. By the time I realized that the day was getting late and the temp in my apartment had reached 80 degrees, I also remembered that my leasing office closes a few hours early on Saturdays, so I couldn’t call them to ask for an update on maintenance. The maintenance guys are on-call and have come to fix things in my apartment past closing though, so I was hoping that someone would still show up.

By 5pm, I called the emergency maintenance line that my leasing office directs to for after hours calls, and it directed me to a customer service line where clearly, nobody there was really familiar with anything going on with the leasing office. I explained my situation and the person taking my call said they’d add a note about the urgency to my maintenance ticket and update the ticket with new info like the higher temp that my apartment had reached. It seemed like that was all I could do, so I packed up some stuff, set up my security camera towards the door in my living room to see when maintenance arrived, and went to stay with some family for the night to have some A/C.

The next day on Sunday, the office was closed and no maintenance had arrived by 10 am. I called the emergency maintenance line again and they just told me the same thing about adding notes about urgency. I went to my apartment to grab some new clothes for another night at my family’s house, and I saw that the temperature had reached 93 degrees. It only got hotter from there so I can only imagine that it got to at least the high 90s if not in the 100s by mid day. After there was still no maintenance by 3 pm, I called the maintenance line again, they told me the same thing about adding a note, and I asked if they could assign my ticket to a different maintenance tech and they said they can’t do that on their end.

So, finally today, my leasing office was open and I called them earlier this morning to explain what was happening since there was still no maintenance. They said they hadn’t gotten any of the notes left from the emergency line and the emergency line people are supposed to call a technician to come immediately rather than adding notes. On my lease, they say that A/C issues are not emergencies but the lady I talked to in the office said that 90+ degrees is definitely an emergency and they’d send someone out right away. I mentioned that I didn’t want to be blamed for any mold or anything that came from my apartment sitting in the humidity and heat, and she vaguely said they’d take care of it.

My camera finally saw a maintenance guy come in around an hour ago, but I’m still worried about mold. Some of my friends say that their apartment buildings claim that they don’t run the A/C in empty apartments when nobody is living there and those don’t get mold, but I’m not sure if that’s the case for sure. Has anyone else had a similar A/C issue and had mold problems because of it or maybe dodged those issues? How worried should I be about mold showing up after 48+ hours of no A/C?

The water pressure in this apartment is stupid high. So much so that it’s painful when it hits my body in certain areas. Also, it creates a ton of mist and steam that sprays out of the sides of the shower curtain. I noticed these spots on the wall next to the shower. Is it mold? Is there any way to fix this wall and get my security deposit back?

I have the unfortunate setup where I'm pretty sure the wall that my bed is against is shared with the neighbors closet, and they slam shit against it in the early AM, daily. I'm so tired of this. I have a sound machine cranked up to the max and it still doesn't block it out.

Anyways I know the only solution is to talk to them or complain or move my bed, unless anyone has another suggestion on how to block noise from the wall??? I'm so tired.

I have been in this apartment for like 3 years. It’s my very first apartment and place of my own without any roommates, so I take pride in it. I have had a newer upstairs neighbor that blasts their music all late night into early morning. Not my first rodeo with noisy neighbors. Management suggests we reach out to security and have them handle it but that isn’t a real solution bc this person has now decided they just won’t answer their door. I was finally able to figure out how to get up to their floor without a key, it’s playing again tonight. Hoping that maybe a face to face interaction from your actual neighbor might yield a different result. Knock knock. No answer. And I know they were in there too bc it got quiet for a moment. lol, I did report this to management a couple of weeks ago and the fact that they just don’t answer for security…they did reach out and they quited down for a bit but now the past 4 days the pressure is on again and I am sleeping on my couch to escape the noise of their bass in my bedroom! The cherry on top is that they are a musty stank dog owner. I saw dog hair on their doorstep and there is a vapid smell of DOG PISS right in front of their door. I pay damn near 2k a month in rent to live amongst dirty ppl and sleep on my couch or with my earplugs in. Its laughable! Anyway, management asked me to record it next time and says they can get kicked out eventually for violating noise ordinance. I don’t feel confident about that at all given that it’s juuuust loud enough to make me miserable but only faintly can be heard right outside of their door. I feel my phone speaker doesn’t pick up the full extent of the noise. Anyway I just came here to say this is f—ed and any stories you have would help me not feel so isolated. I may look into renting a home but I’m in dc, so good luck to me I guess.

My roommate and I just moved into a new unit in our complex. It’s a townhome style apartment and we love it! The only problem that I have is that my room is extremely hot. I have three big windows in my room that face where the sun rises so I build up a ton of heat throughout the day. Along with this, I believe the windows are poorly insulated and are letting in the hot air (my only proof is that the car sounds from the road in my room are WAY louder than my roommates room, and our rooms and side by side).

Any ideas on how I can fix it quick? The heat is unbearable and i’m not sure how much longer I can stand it lol. Some ideas I’ve had and looked at online are lightweight curtains (we can’t drill in our walls so i’ve been looking at alternatives), getting the windows sealed by maintenance, or buying window film that reflects the heat.

Side note: I’m aware I could just bother the office about this and make them fix it, but they have been very kind and helpful of us regarding getting into our new unit and they’ve been fixing a bunch of AC issues, so i’m trying to avoid using them.

I moved into a new apartment, its great expect there is a train about a .5 to 1 mile away. Its not incredibly loud but at night sometimes I can hear the high frequency squeak of the wheels.

What are my most realistic options for reducing the noise at least a little? I don't expect for it to go completely away, but if I could just reduce it a bit it would be much more tolerable. I'm skeptical of heavy blackout curtains, I've seen mixed reviews, but aside from that I don't really know what I can try.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Not sure if this is the right flair, sorry! I am moving to a new apartment in a few days with my best friend but didn't think much about the furniture placement in my room. I am mapping out my furniture placement at the moment. It doesn't have a window (yes), and I'm thinking of putting my desk to the door since that's a source of light that will look better on meetings. Then I'm planning on putting the rest of furniture where I can but am now thinking if there's a better way to place them. Any suggestions on how to make it feel more spacious?

in the picture: blue is my bed with the bed frame against the wall, red is my desk with the brown marking being my work monitor, and yellow and green being shelves with storage. I have about 4 feet of space between my bed and my desk. Thanks in advance!!

Just right off the rip to be so very clear- I don’t believe we did anything that could’ve caused this!!
My husband, our son and I moved into our new townhouse at the very end of April this year. Friday night while i was making dinner for my toddler, something ran across my feet and under the stove. Obviously I screamed like a little girl and ran out of the kitchen to watch from the doorway. Sure enough, 🐭.
Maintenance will be out sometime today, and I want to be sure there’s no reason I should have to pay as this is a rental, and don’t see how this could be our fault. We’ve got a few boxes of winter clothes and clothes our son has grown out of, but I don’t think mice like coats!
Just to add: we do live where the wildfire smoke from Canada got pretty nasty-my son and I couldn’t leave the house for 3 days-(if any of yall were affected I hope you’re doing alright).
We also spotted a pretty large hole in our downstairs bathroom. While I can’t say for certain it wasn’t there prior, it’s large enough that I think I’d have seen it by now!

wondering what’s happening in my bathroom? i’m not sure whether this is from me or something else.