A Letter to Head Office & More

So we left off the last entry with the second letter I wrote to Linda Shannon, building manager. At this point I'm mad because they are failing to do anything. I think they count on the fact that people won't actually take them to court! Well, I'm going to take the due to the locker incident. I found out through talking to neighbors that the girl who lives immediately next door to me sued them and won just recently! They had left a grate off by the side door. She had stepped out of the door into the hole and was hurt pretty badly. The building management actually told her that she should have looked where she was walking!!!!!!

Anyways, a third letter was written...this one sent to Osgoode Properties in Ottawa...head office. You can read the letter here
We attached the photos that were posted here in the Locker Incident post and of course we've not received a response.

The Nasty Neighbors

Around the time of this third letter, the neighbors in 205 started fighting more and more. He would come home and find her with some guy and freak out calling her a "$unt" and "whore". He would literally kick the door. I had to call the cops on them in April. The cops just threw the guy out. They would continue to fight. One day while I was at work, Andrew said they were fighting and throwing things at each other. It's tough to sleep through that.

On April 29th the fighting was really bad again with slamming doors and name-calling and breaking glass noises. I called the police again. This time they were served with a ticket for noise violations. It turns out that they had smashed out their balcony window(s). I honestly can't understand why a rental company would allow people who disturb other residents to live in their building...especially since they are constantly blocking the hallways with stuff they find around the building and in the trash. Often there are bikes in the hallway too.

A bunch of us on our floor signed a letter telling the building management to deal with those people. Now I have to write down all the times they've disturbed us since they moved in. Like I remember that crap. I've called the cops on them twice, every one is complaining, boot them out!! Simple as that. Since they've been warned by building management, I've not heard a peep out of that apartment. However, they do leave their crap in the hallway all the time still.

We're Leaving!!

On April 30th, Andrew delivered a letter to building management stating we were giving our 60 day notice. They actually had to ask why we were leaving. I can hear Andrew's sarcastic I-can't-believe-you're-that-stupid tone of voice replying to them. He told them that we wanted to live somewhere better. I can't believe they had to ask!!! Anyways, here's a copy of the notice letter we gave them.
The next day, we received a knock on our door. It was our neighbor who lived next door. She gave us a letter that was delivered to her.

She never gave notice. We did. The very next day (May 2nd) we received the following letter...notice it's back-dated to April 30th. I almost choked when I read the last paragraph there. "We hope you have enjoyed your stay with us at Westview Place Apartments, and will consider Osgoode Properties for any future rental needs." Are you f-ing daft?!?! I will NEVER rent from Osgoode Properties again. I'd rather be homeless...yeah so we enjoyed our stay here **rolls her eyes** They need a new form-letter.

It's almost unbelievable. They received our letter and acknowledge a notice of termination that my neighbor never sent. Then they back-dated ours. This place seriously has the poorest management around. I wonder what they can get right.

There is more of course, I doubt it will ever end. I'll post more about it later though because I have to find the next letter we were sent. I think it's at work because I had to phone them about it.

We've been approved for our new place and moving day is June 30th. It can't come soon enough.

The Locker Incident

THE LOCKER INCIDENT

For Christmas, Andrew and I got a small round table that works as an island to use as our table because our apartment is pretty small and our kitchen was really crowded. So we moved our bigger table down to our locker at the end of December. We then packed up a few more boxes of clutter (some left over things from the wedding) and went to take them down mid-January. Well Andrew went to take them down. A bit later he came back shaking. He had our cut lock in his hand and a small little brass lock in there as well. He said someone had cut our lock and put the little lock on there. And then he said that he thought my big box was missing. I was livid. At first I thought it was some of the rift-raft in the building that would have broken in and taken our stuff. Then I remembered how the landlord had assigned our locker to someone else and thought maybe they had done that. Still...I was furious.

Sure enough my big Dell computer box was gone and a couple of Andrew's other boxes were gone through and items taken. My only solace in this is that the computer box was heavy like a Dell but it had dolls and other items in it. Retards!! I wish I could have seen the look on their faces when they opened the big computer box and found DOLLS! But still, this is all stuff that will be difficult and impossible in some instances for me to replace. Dolls my parents had given me, things from my grandmother that was passed down to me through my mother. If this stuff was important to me why was it down there you ask? Because I simply do not have room for it up here in the apartment. Our apartment barely fits us and so some things are still in boxes to this day.

I left a message on the rental office phone telling them that someone had taken the lock off our locker and some of my stuff was missing. I said I wanted my stuff back and that I would be down in the morning to talk to them. By the way, this is sort of proof that they don't listen to their messages on the office machine...they didn't even know I was coming when I went down with my husband in the morning. I took some time off of work so I could deal with this. Oh yes, that's another thing...the office hours. I also filed a police report at that time. Report # 07-2212.

The office hours are from 9am to 4pm. I work from 830am to 5pm so I have to take time off work if I want anything done. I can't get them to come and fix my toilet without me going down there in person to sign a work-order. This is ridiculous. I should be able to fill out a letter or form and place it in a box or drop it off at the office during the off-hours. But no, you have to take time off of your job to deal with their crap of a management team.

Okay back to the locker thing. So the poor guy (Derek) that I let lose on looked almost scared and told me that I should write it all down. He pulled out the locker book and then said that they had cut locks off for fire code reasons and then said that the replacement lock did look like one of theirs. He said it should have been locked. I told him that it wasn't or I wouldn't have been able to give it to him just now. If it had been, my stuff wouldn't be gone and I'd be here yelling about being locked out of my locker. I asked why we weren't told about it. He pulled our file and said there wasn't a notice in there. He told me to write a letter. So I did.

Here is the letter...

You can download the pdf as well in case you can't read that. theft_complaint.pdf 12KB

We drop it off and we don't hear anything about it at all. So I wrote another letter. By this time I'm pretty mad. I mean they've done NOTHING and to make matters worse, Derek the assistant manager quit. I hope it wasn't because I went off on him...poor guy. It isn't his fault that Linda Shannon is a piss-poor building manager. You know, their website states that they care on their About Osgoode page.

A commitment to delivering consistently high customer service levels has earned Osgoode a unique reputation in the industry. Our team of professionals promptly responds to tenant concerns and needs, with sensitivity and flexibility. Osgoode’s pride of ownership is reflected in the proactive care and maintenance programs performed on every property. The attention to detail is evident in the cleanliness and overall condition of the building exteriors, landscaping, common areas and homes.

Consistently high customer service?!? Who are these customers they're talking to? If by "unique" they mean crappy then yes, I can agree that they have a unique reputation. The part that stands out as an absolute lie is the line where it says "Our team of professionals promptly responds to tenant concerns and needs, with sensitivity and flexibility." Ummm **coughs** bull crap **coughs**

So a second letter was written. This letter included an itemized list of what was taken.

Of course you can view the whole thing in pdf format as well. theft_complaint_followup.pdf (15KB)

When Andrew dropped it off, they said they weren't liable because they insured the outer door to the locker was secured. They must mean this door...


Yeah that door is really nice and secure. Okay well the outer door to the building is secure isn't it? I mean not just anyone can come in and help themselves to things in people's lockers if the lock on them isn't latched? That's correct right? Sure if you think this side door (the one between building 20 and building 52) is secure.

Yup looks nice and secure there too. So obviously their claim that they have secured the outer doors is totally false because they haven't. By the way, these doors still look like this as of the date of this post. One thing I want to point out here...see all the rust there on the floor...that door hasn't closed in a VERY long time. They tried to claim it's because the door is warped from the weather. Hmmm I'll have to look up what temperature metal needs to be to warp with the weather changes. I bet it doesn't get hot or cold enough here in Kingston Ontario.

Anyways, because they didn't notify us either before or after they removed the locks, they are completely liable. And yet, they try to claim they aren't. We're going to have to go to court.

In The Beginning...

Let me start today with the rental application. On the rental application, I had to list previous places I had lived and give the phone numbers for the people who ran the building. Pretty typical stuff. It took them over a week to verify what sort of tenant I was because they couldn't get a hold of the one building I lived in. The first one gave me a glowing review. It was the best building I've lived in to date (Fairfield Management Ltd. and they are an AWESOME company). But anyways, they couldn't get a hold of the second one so they "weren't sure about us". **rolls her eyes**. Finally, I told them that the second building I lived in was mis-managed and about how I had been broken into during the time I was there. So she decided that it was fine the way it was and approved us. While we were signing our lease, there was another guy in there who used his welfare cheques as proof of income. She had made a big stink about us being students and our income but yet welfare people were allowed? I guess it's sort of logical as most people on welfare make more than a student does.

Our rent was $645.00 per month payable at the beginning of the month. We were given a discount for moving in on short notice. We moved in within two weeks of finding the place. So we paid our last month's rent plus a little extra (two days I think) as well as first month's rent.

We have our lease...I won't scan it because it's too long and annoying. But we have one. It states that parking is free and that we can have pets. It also states a fee for an air conditioner that must be placed in a window that is approved by the landlord. Actually, let me scan that part...okay my lease is lost. Oh well I'll find it I'm sure.

We had made arrangements to pay for a couple of extra days so that I could pick up the keys prior to moving in. Not a problem. On the day I went to pick up the keys, they had no idea who I was and didn't want to give me the keys. I finally managed to convince them that I had paid for a couple of extra days so that I could have the keys. Grrrr.

When we moved in, we noticed right away that the apartment didn't smell like paint. Then we could tell that it hadn't been painted at all. So there's one thing they told us was going to happen and didn't. We were told we would be assigned a locker at a later date. This locker issue has been an on-going problem.

After a week or so, my husband and I noticed that the back door to the building wasn't latching properly and that you could gain access to the building by pulling on the bottom of the door. So we went and reported it. Six months later it still wasn't fixed and even to this day if you don't latch it properly, it can be opened from the outside.

About a month or so after we moved in, we decided we should ask about our locker. We went down and they were very unorganized pulling out a binder and trying to figure out what locker was available. They assigned us one in Locker Room 2...I think it was bin 5. We went down to put some belongings in and we found the latch was broken so we couldn't put a lock on it. We reported this to the landlord. We even filled out a work order. A month later, it's still not fixed. We asked again. Then we went down to check on it and found the latch was fixed but it had been assigned to someone else! I was mad! So we were assigned Bin 1 in Locker Room 2 about 9 months after we moved in.

The building is never cleaned. Someone told me that there is a cleaning lady and I've never seen her. At the building owned by Fairfield Management Ltd. the super cleaned the hallways every single week. This place?! HA! The hallways are dirty with debris in them for months at a time...the stairwells are worse. There are black marks on the wall, general grime and often garbage and cigarette butts left in there. One time, someone had spit all over the back of the door. It stayed there for a good month!

Oh and then there was the time that someone puked in the hallway and it stayed there for 3 days before another tenant in the building cleaned it up. I'll do a tour soon to show the exact condition of the hallways.

Anyways all of this is just the pre-amble to the big issues!

About This Blog

I created this blog to share with the world my horrible experiences with Osgoode Properties. Osgoode Properties is a rental company out of Ottawa Ontario and they have buildings in Ottawa, Kingston and Edmonton.

DISCLAIMER: This blog is based solely on my experiences. The images presented were taken by myself and any building images were taken at 20 Bayswater Place, Kingston Ontario.

Let me put this first and foremost: I will never rent from Osgoode Properties again. Nor will I rent in any building that is managed by Linda Shannon. I would rather be homeless or live in my car than to rent from either Osgoode Properties or Linda Shannon again. Wow those are pretty strong words I can hear you say! I am not exaggerating.

My husband and I entered a lease with Osgoode beginning July 1st, 2005 for a one bedroom apartment at 20 Bayswater Place, Kingston, Ontario. The building is older (my parents lived in this building 27 or 28 years ago when it was new) but I've lived in older buildings before. It's not an issue if they are maintained. When we toured our unit, it was clean but we were told that it would be painted before we moved in. It seemed like we had made a good choice. It didn't take long to change our opinions though.

It's late so I'll finish more of this another day.