Better Business Bureau:
We would like to reject the offer of Arbitration for complaint ID 12949046.
We reject the offer to arbitrate because of the following: First, Extra Space Storage "ESS" heard and chose to not listen to our valid complaint regarding our health concerns caused by the 945 Zerega Avenue, Bronx, NY 10473 facility's posting of the Asbestos Exposure warning sign, which lacked an explanation detailing the cause and actual location of the toxic airborne particles. Our initial contact with the site was met with a response that a fellow employee who was pregnant had not shown any negative side affects from being exposed to the Asbestos. This is and cannot be seriously considered to be a valid and/or ample assurance for us to safely reenter the facility. All that we simply requested was to be provided with a clearance letter/note, but they chose not to provide any documentation whatsoever.
Second, upon contacting ESS's Headquarters and speaking with a District Manager from Customer Service, she stated that she could and would not provide such a clearance note and that in doing so it would be too much of task for them to mail out such notices to all clients; followed by her statement that we owed X amount the monthly fees and auction notice, and that if we failed to pay the said amount, our items would be auctioned on August 1st. Therefore, our conversion ended by agreeing we were at an impasse. Moreover, ESS does not seem to have any financial difficulties or added responsibilities for mailing out notices and making countless phone calls to remind their customers of the rental fees dues, including notice of lien and cancellation of insurance, and notices of auctions.
Further, upon communicating with Mr. Lopes, from customer service, he suggested that he could not help us, but said that if the total amount due was too steep then we should directly contact the Site Manager to workout a Pay to Vacate agreement. We did and the site manager immediately and arbitrability denied our request for a Pay to Vacate agreement, certainly due to this BBB Complaint.
If we would have received a simple basic note stating that the Asbestos exposure was confined to an isolated area and that non of our items were affected, then we would have immediately carried our plan to vacate towards the end of April 2018, rather than July 28, 2018 which was 3 months later and where we inadvertently and reluctantly accrued 2 additional months of rental fees and an auction fees for something that we should not have been billed in the first place had ESS provided a Clearance note to assuage our Health concerns which are on the record.
We reject the offer of arbitration because we are well aware that ESS has the financial backing to litigate via arbitration through its legal department and therefore make our Complaint invalid based on the False Affirmations from ESS staff members.
At this juncture, what we want and desire is for the truth concerning Extra Space Storage Management's Shady Business practices to be Exposed and for our Complaint to remain on the Record via Better Business Bureau website for all potential storage customers to view... Moreover, for our Compliant and BBB, we are submitting some exhibits containing photos of the actual site and their blatant negligence to customer. ESS charges exorbitant rental fees without proving an air condition control environment which causes the destruction of stored items, they have a rodent rampage issue (See photos marked Rodent Trap 1 and 2); Both lights in our unit (See photo marked Non Working Light 1) which never worked, and we did complained, but nothing was ever done to resolve that issue and I am certain that part of the rental fees were allocated for having 2 light fixtures that never were in working order. Third, throughout the facility, we notice various posting of the Ceiling Leaks in either an actual Unit or in the immediate area adjacent to the storage units. (See photo marked Ceiling Leaks in Units) The point remains that if ESS is only prepared to do the bare minimum for its customers, if anything at all (our complaints were heard but not addressed), and yet they have no issues collecting rental fees which only helps the EXR NYSE stock. This matter re: Extra Space Storage Shady Business practices and unkempt facilities will continue online via Yelp, Facebook etc... read more