I recently viewed an apartment at 3224 N Keating Ave Apt 1. Although the Veronica (and her co-worker Maritza) did provide good communication and were professional through out the process, what caused me to not recommend them is that they represent slum lords, wasted a couple hours of my time by failing to notify me ahead of time of the many serious issues with this apartment, were willing to endanger my life and property, and failed to perform their civic duty. Among the most egregious problems with this apartment were:
- The apartment building itself had a serious cock roach infestation, during our tour we found at least 10 dead cock roaches in the bathrooms and kitchen. God only knows how many you would see scurry away if you left the lights off for a couple hours and then turned them back on. I personally doubt this issue can be solved without gutting the entire building and fumigating it.
- There was exposed high voltage electrical wiring in numerous locations both throughout the apartment itself, and in the common areas of the building.
- The smoke detectors in common areas of the building which feature natural gas burning appliances, such as a furnace room and the laundry room, had broken smoke detectors.
- I did not notice any smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors the apartment, which are required by law.
When I brought up these issues and numerous other issues to her coworker Maritza, she seemed to have a general indifference to them, and simply said the property owner would fix them, which I consider highly unlikely because it is obvious many of these issues have been there for years and that the property owner is a slum lord. When I brought up this issues to Veronica, she simply said she would forward them to the property owner. They however have not pulled the listing until the property owner fixes these serious code violations, which gives the impression dont really seem to care if someone dies in a fire or is electrocuted, so long as they get their commission.
It seems like this company has a general lack of ethics and are willing to sell any property, regardless of if it is unsafe and would endanger the lives of the tenants, when they really should have just called 311 and reported the numerous code violations as is their civic duty. As a result, I would exercise extreme caution when considering any properties listed by Tapia Realty, and ensure that they are thoroughly inspected by your own building inspectors. read more