Help me write my formal letter of complaint to my apartment building. I’ve got the gist below, but it needs some tweaking.
Mayfair,
A little over one month ago, my bathtub was leaking through my wall, it was fixed, briefly, and is now leaking through the wall again. Currently the smell of something rotten fills my room. I keep an orderly and clean apartment, top to bottom, and the only explanation I can come up with is that something has died within the walls.
I am continually amazed at the how this building is in perpetual disrepair. The laundry room is always full of broken washers and dryers. My supposedly brand new refrigerator broke after one month. My supposedly refurbished apartment has stained carpeting, handles that fall off closets, doors that fall off cabinets, a bathtub that has leaked through a wall and mildewed the carpet and to top it off, smells like a dead animal.
Despite my complaints, only the minimum, and a shoddy minimum at that, has been done to fix these issues. The refrigerator that replaced my broken one had streaks and smears of unidentified food on the inside, is perpetually running and does not sit level. Since my kitchen floor is not level either, I have attempted to arrange the refrigerator in such a way that it sits level. Unfortunately, this would require placing the front of the refrigerator against the front of the stove. When I used a vacation day from work to be present in my apartment as a new window was installed [a presence that was specifically ‘required’ on the scrawled note shoved under my door] the workers never arrived and I was informed that they ‘had run out of windows.’
Since I had wasted a vacation day I informed Helen Parisi that the workers would have to come on a Saturday to install the window. Over a month later I found another nearly illegible note under my door informing me that the window would be installed in my apartment the next day. Less than 24 hours notice is almost as bad as no notice at all.
Finally, to top off the management woes, you lost my June rent check, waited until July to inform me that you ‘did not receive my June rent,’ and had the gall to attempt to charge me a $50 late fee. You received my June rent. I know this because I personally delivered it to your office not twenty feet from my apartment with a note about my leaking tub and soaking wet floor. Five days later I found a note in my room saying that my bathtub had been fixed.
I had to put a stop payment on the check you lost, which came with a $29 service charge. I am not going to pay this service charge. My August rent check will be $29 less than normal. I am also asking to be released from my lease with no penalty at the end of August. I don’t believe I can use the word ‘living conditions’ in regard to my apartment because I have come to the conclusion that it is unlivable and that you do not care whether it is or not. I know I can find a better deal and more responsible management virtually anywhere else than a place operated by KSB management.
Apartment 110
I think it sounds good. You should contact the Cleveland Tenants Association (google for that and you should find their website). Their site has all sorts of sample legal documents (which I suppose you could get at work too) and they exist to help in matters like these.
Second paragraph, you need a comma before “to top it off,”.
In the third paragraph, I would break into a new paragraph when you switch to talking about the whole “window incident” and maybe have a transitional phrase at the beginning like “Also” or “On another occasion.”
And finally, I really really really would try to shorten it a lot–make it more concise. I’m not saying to dumb it down necessarily, but realize that whoever is gonna be reading this is NOT GONNA WANT TO BE READING IT because it’s saying something they don’t wanna hear. So they’re going to be naturally disposed to glossing through it to get to the end unless you keep their interest. And if you talk so lengthily about everything, you’re gonna lose their interest quickly.
All the points you bring up are good ones. Maybe just try some bulleting of your examples and making them more concise and that kinda thing. That way it’ll also have more force.
That help?
Thanks Genevieve, that site is helpful.
Thanks Lauren, those are good point. It is mostly a rant at this stage.
your house was fine jmay.
and yes. except crappier.
So, the living conditions last summer weren’t quite so bad? I’m sorry to hear that you have to put up with so much crap. Do the apartments feel a bit like some of the bleaker novels from the cold war era depictions of the future? i.e. 1984, A Clockwork Orange, etc.
Cleveland Tenant Thinger.