To a certain extent I feel bad for Jenny Bogan; I imagine she has a very limited budget for repairs given that Lofts 125 is in default on their mortgage, and I imagine it must be hard to deal with so many unhappy and angry tenants. But her own perpetual lying only exacerbates her standing with us.
If she had said something like, "Hey, the owners of Lofts 125 are in financial dire straits, and I don't have the budget or the resources to finish your apartment on time, can you work with me on this?" we might not have liked it, but we would have accepted it, and we wouldn't have arrived at this level of frustration and distrust with her. Unfortunately, all she has done is lie to us, so much so that by default we don't believe her now, and we can't help but laugh when she "promises" something "100 %" to us.
Tuesday she confirmed 3 times that the "brand new" microwave would be installed on Wednesday. She had been telling us that it had been "ordered and delivered" to her "office in Connecticut," and that it just needed to be installed. When it was not installed on Wednesday, she tried to convince us that we were "confused," that we had "misunderstood" her, and insisted that she had said it would be installed on Thursday. (Again, "tomorrow," always tomorrow.) When she finally did have it installed, just like the "brand new" dishwasher (that came loaded with dirty dishes), the "brand new" refrigerator (that came with a moldy cupcake), and the "brand new" stove (that came with the kind of scratch marks you'd expect from normal usage), the microwave came with food smears and flecks all over the inside of it.
I don't care that none of the appliances are brand-new. I don't even care that they are not all stainless-steel. I don't care that we had to waste two hours of our time dismantling the refrigerator to rehang the doors so that they swing open the right way, (rather than wait for her to have it done). It's fine that the appliances work and that they are all finally there. I just don't get why Jenny Bogan insists on lying about them being "brand-new" and "all stainless steel."
We told her that we were getting the impression that she has just been constantly lying to us, and of course she didn't like that. Then we asked her for another definite date by which she would have the bricks sealed. She said Friday. "Friday?" we said. "Friday," she promised.
Then we told her that if the work still wasn't done again as agreed by Friday that we would have to consider contacting the authorities. And then she EXPLODED. About how she is "a professional" and about how she "won't be threatened" because she is "a professional." She yelled and screamed for nearly 8 full minutes, never letting us get a word in, and only stopping to gasp for air. She tried to drop us from our lease. We declined. A lease works to protect both landlord and tenant, (they have our security deposit and our 1st month's rent, and Wednesday was only the 2nd day of our lease). When she was done screaming, we calmly stated that we just wanted her to have our apartment finished by Friday as agreed. She said, "No," that the work would be done "Saturday."
So Saturday someone was supposed to come by 8am to seal our brick wall. When no one arrived by 9:30am I called her, and left a msg. She "popped by" later and told us a story about calling the brick guy 40 times, and said that he couldn't make it due to a "family emergency" and that he would come Monday. We told her that that was inconvenient, so she said Sunday instead. I asked her about the filth. Brick dust is very fine and when you try to clean it, it poofs high up into the air, goes everywhere, and takes a long time to settle. Our place has been covered in it because they never cleaned before we moved in. I reminded her of this, and told her that once they finished the bricks, there would be even more of it, and that it would take hours to clean. She "promised" that she'd send "a cleaning crew" in, "right after the bricks were sealed."
Two hours later she popped by again with the brick guy, to show him what needed to be done. Evidently, within 2 hours, she had forgotten her lie about his "family emergency." When they arrived, she pointed to him and said, "As you can see, he's limping. He's injured his knee and that is why he can't do the work today." He wasn't limping, and because he was Guatemalan, his English wasn't quite quick enough to catch his cue to start limping. But he promised us himself that he'd be back Sunday morning to seal the bricks, and he at least told us the truth.
No cleaning crew ever came of course. We spent hours cleaning, but everything is still covered in brick dust. When you move by it, it poofs up into the air again and settles very slowly. We breathe it in because we have to, and it gets in our eyes. But at least we can start unpacking now. The last thing we will ask her to do is install vents and filters in the gaping holes that were cut into the heating ducts. read more