And the Apartment Saga Continues
If you thought you’d heard the last of the Harbor Point/UMass Boston Drama, you’re wrong. We left off with me paying rent for an apartment I couldn’t live in. I didn’t know why and the school did nothing to help me understand.
Yesterday morning I called the Harbor Point Leasing Office to see how and when I could get my security deposit and last month’s rent back. They directed me to the Management Office. The Management Office told me that I should receive it thirty days after moving out, and when they found out that I moved out in May they said they’d call me back. Five o’clock rolls around and they still hadn’t called, so I called them. The girl on the other end of the phone takes my information down and tells me that she’ll call me back in five minutes. An hour passes so I call back and leave a message. About two hours after that, Heidi (part of the Harbor Point Management; not just a receptionist) calls me back to address my questions.
Apparently, our apartment information on her computer does not say that we had an Early Vacate Letter. It says that we broke our lease. She explains to me that this means that we are responsible for our rent until the end of August. When I try to tell her that we did not break our lease, but instead an Early Vacate Letter was signed, she tells me that I will have to talk to Justin Holstrom about that because he is in charge of that area. Not only do we have to continue to pay, but she tells me that one of my roommates had not been paying since January (before any drama even started) and so our security deposit has been applied to rent that was due. We were going to owe Harbor Point money at the end of August as opposed to getting our one thousand dollars back.
So it all becomes clear. I didn’t understand why the rules of the Vacate Letter no longer applied to me. Now I know that it was because we "broke our lease" instead. Neither Justin Holstrom nor Kelly Meehan ever mentioned this as an explanation. And it’s not as if I didn’t ask. I asked multiple people at Harbor Point to explain this to me and no one offered this as an answer. Kelly Meehan didn’t give me any explanation at all after speaking with Justin Holstrom herself.
I have been wronged by UMass Boston and Harbor Point Apartments. I wish that no other student ever has to go through the mess that I’ve gone through. This was my first year in the "big bad world" and I certainly got the brunt of it. I’ve tasted the injustice, the hardship, and the utter unfairness of it all. I’ve been playing by the rules and in return I am the one who is punished. I’m living a sad life of earning money to pay rent for an apartment that I cannot live in. Now after months of fruitless work, I’m going to owe money? Because my roommate (who lives with her parents and is not hurting for money, for the record) flakes out on her rent?
This whole situation makes me sick. I’m so thankful that I’m leaving on exchange in a few weeks.