When Move-In is a Nightmare
After spending a year at harbor point, my roommates and I decided that it was time for us to branch out and find a place that better suited our individual needs. Harbor Point is a beautiful location, with amazing amenities included and a wonderful community; the downfall was that each of us feels we are at the age that it’s necessary we have our own bedrooms and could not afford this in Harbor Point. My 4 roommates and I sat down together, and decided 3 of us would be leaving, 2 of us would be staying, and I began my search right then and there!
The knowledge and experience I have gained through working at the Office of Off-Campus Living were extremely helpful in my search; it truly only took me a few days before I found a handful of apartments that met all of our needs; separate bedrooms, affordable rent, pets allowed, and parking for our cars! Soon, we safely toured the house we were most excited about with a realtor and accepted the landlords offer the very next day. We were so ecstatic to move in and settle into our new home; that was of course until we spent our first night there!
On move-in day, I quickly came to the realization that everything mentioned by our realtor, and in our lease, was not exactly true. The first, immediate problem was they neglected to clean up all of the construction sawdust and dirt, although we were told it would be cleaned prior to move-in; although this isn’t huge, it made a big dent in our schedule as we had to spend hours cleaning the house before moving our stuff in, all in extremely hot weather. I easily brushed this off and moved on, but the same night I found myself lying in bed, unable to sleep because our bathtub faucet was not properly installed and was echoing while dripping water.
Luckily, this was addressed quickly as we had a maintenance worker come the next day to fix the tub and a broken window in one of the bedrooms. I thought we were in the clear, but things only got worse in the next week. I tried to run our dishwasher only for it to flood the bottom, I was so excited to use our new, big backyard, come to find poison ivy littering the yard. The cherry on top of it all was one night the upstairs tenant decided to use their bathtub for the first time, and all of the water came rushing through my bedroom ceiling, onto my desk and my belongings. The very same night, we had a hazardous carbon monoxide leak in our stove because the workers failed to remove a piece of plastic on the inside.
To say I was furious is the very least; the carbon monoxide put my roommates, myself, and my animals in immediate physical danger, and I had my entire desk soaked in water. The next morning, I sat down and summarized every single issue we’d had since moving in and highlighted that in our lease it says the conditions must be “livable”. At this time, we had our gas turned off and waited almost 2 weeks for it to be fixed, so I did not consider this “livable”. I was growing increasingly frustrated, so I did some research of my own and decided to confront the management company.
The mention of me inviting a state inspector over to the home for my own comfort seemed to do the job, they quickly offered us a 2-week credited refund of our rent and had a worker sent over the next day to fix every single issue. I made sure to speak with each of the workers that came by, who each assured me that the original construction was done very poorly and was obviously rushed. Keeping track of every incident with details and getting the workers’ input was really useful when it came to writing my complaint. There was truly no way for the landlord’s management to deny we were not given what we were promised, and they had no choice but to refund us for those 2 weeks.
I was lucky to have the knowledge and experience to know what is okay and what is not in regard to your home, unfortunately, I think they tried to take advantage of us because we are a group of young college students, doing this for the first time. If I had decided to have a city inspector come by the house, this would of all been done through the Government of Boston’s website, under inspectional services:
https://www.boston.gov/departments/inspectional-services/inspecting-housing-boston.
I found the website to be extremely user friendly, there are options to request service both online and on the phone. Within 24 hours, a representative is to contact you and schedule a time to take a look at the physical conditions of your living situation. If they were to find anything wrong or out of standard, the city has the right to contact the landlord and ensure the work is done and done correctly. Looking back, I could have certainly saved an abundance of time if I had an inspector come over here in July, and will most likely do that with any new housing in my future.
Have the city inspector on your side is the best step to making sure you are receiving what you signed up for, and that you are ensured to be safe. While our apartment is great now, we are still dealing with issues today; I have requested a state inspector to come and look at a vine that is pulling down a tree outside because our landlord won’t acknowledge it. If you’re unable to get through to your landlord, be sure to utilize the resources you have as a citizen.