My first apartment in Boston was an RCG property, and oh, what a nightmare.
We lived in the cocksore that is Central Square. My two roommates and I really fell in ... well, not love but LIKE, with the place at first sight. It was a decent enough apartment. Albeit with a tiny outdated kitchen and almost no common space, but there were hardwood floors, big windows and it was relatively clean. In its way, the apartment was charming, and with three bedrooms and three bathrooms, we were smitten.
Move-in was complicated. We were told we had to find RCG's rental office in Somerville to pick up our keys. On a Saturday. Well, of course no one could find the office, it was off-hours, AND no one at RCG picked up the phone to assist with directions. When we were finally able to find someone from RCG, we were given an envelope of seven keys for three people, all mismatched, none labeled, no explanation. (We were only ever able to identify the front door and the mail key; God only knows what the others were, but they sure as hell didn't open the back door, laundry room, or anything else of use.) In addition, the place had not been cleaned before we moved in, which RCG had told us would happen. They messily painted over some walls, obviously the night before as there were still splotches of wet paint on my bedroom floor and that singular "fresh paint, stuffy apartment in August" smell. But nothing else had been touched. Disappointing.
Lived there for a few months. Place was boiling in the summer but that's to be expected; few places in Boston have AC. Winter rolls around, and our apartment is colder than it is outside. How is that possible? I lived in the basement bedroom (technically, it was on the first floor, since you had to go up a set of stairs to enter the apartment.) My bedroom was +/- 30 degrees F the entire year. The heating was a mere suggestion. I felt like a member of the cast of "Rent." *shudders* And we couldn't control our own heat.
Soon, other problems became noticeable. Two of the three bedroom's windows either did not have screens or the screens were broken. My window did not completely close. One bathroom toilet was so old that it took about forty-five minutes to flush and refill with (dirty) water. The pilot light in the oven was temperamental and simply chose not to work at times. The refrigerator was tiny and old and never quite cold enough, there were strange garbage-y smells at all times that seemed to come from the walls, the intercom and doorbell were broken, there were no batteries in any of the smoke detectors, there was no carbon monoxide detector ... I felt like I was living in Section 8 housing. All for almost $900 month each. RCG took their damn sweet time responding to maintenance calls and only occasionally sent someone out. After our kitchen sink stopped draining, and actually started expulsing water, the maintenance guy took four days to respond, during which time there was dirty water gushing all over the counters. When he came, he simply put a bath towel on the drain and left. It took another three calls to fix it.
Finally, the kicker. The ceiling in the upstairs bathroom FELL DOWN. Now. I don't mean a few tiles came down. I mean that half of the plaster ceiling caved in and fell into the bathtub, and gray water started SPURTING out of the WALLS. I called RCG Maintenance. Left a message. The next day, a man--who was very lovely but spoke no English and couldn't understand my explanation of what had happened--arrived. He plastered the entire ceiling, doing nothing about the leak. So there is a three-foot-wide expanse of wet gray plaster, water still coming out of the walls. He leaves. That night, the ceiling falls down again. I call RCG. They promise to send someone out. They send the same guy, who does the SAME thing. I try to point out the leak but there is a language barrier, and my Spanish is hopelessly limited ("Juan would like a hamburger.") This happens, and I cannot lie, no less than six times. I call the emergency maintenance line, speak with someone and tell them that there is a pipe burst in the wall which is causing my ceiling to collapse, and whence they send someone to fix it, they put up plaster. Rinse, repeat.
It is, by this time, August. I am ready to move into a brand-new, gorgeous apartment in Brookline--for less monies, with keys that actually open doors!--so I decide to throw in the towel and not deal with the ceiling further. We clean the apartment until it is spotless. We get our security deposit back because my father, who is a big Italian man, stood over the inspector and made menacing hand gestures. We move out.
RCG is incompetent and useless. They do not take care of their ramshackle, smelly properties, but they DO charge you an arm and a leg for them. I would never, ever live in another one of their properties. read more
