Thursday, July 15, 2010

the florida virus

viewpoint is having trouble with a corrupt slumlord at the moment:

(slightly edited)
Personally, I suspect I may be wasting my time by appealing to anyone at Mid-America Apartment Communities simply because, given the evidence so far, it appears that the mentality of greed is all-pervasive in the corporate culture of MAAC. Any modicum of ethics and integrity was sacrificed at the altar of Almighty Profits long ago...

Well, today marks the one-week anniversary of our moving debacle but I have to say I... believe there are still some business people of integrity. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same thing for the folks at The Lighthouse at Fleming Island in Florida.

On the morning after the flood, I visited Laura Hulsey - Community Manager laura.hulsey@maac.net (904) 278-6006 and instead of expressing any concern or interest for our situation, any inquiry as to our well-being, she matter-of-factly made it clear in no uncertain terms that I would be receiving an invoice for the costs of the water damage cleanup. My lightening-quick instincts told me this was an evil, otherworldly creature that relishes every opportunity to abuse and oppress tenants. One look into that cold, stupid, lifeless stare of hers makes it intuitively obvious to even the casual observer that this is so.

Years ago I learned what I call the customer's algorithm. Here's the pseudo code:

while (level of service not = acceptable) do {
escalate efforts by contacting someone higher up the corporate food chain
if ((unethical mentality flows from top down = true or
entire corporate culture = polluted or
evidence of integrity = false) or
(satisfied))
then {
quit
}
}

This provides a simple way to discover the integrity and ethical fabric of an organization. In this case, I was led to Mr. Glenn Evers - Regional Manager glenn.evers@maac.net (904) 363-2300.

I spoke with Mr. Glen Evers two days ago and, after listening to my side of the story, he indicated he would get back to me before the end of business yesterday. When that didn't happen I was cautiously optimistic that he might have found reason to believe that I shouldn't be held liable for the water damage cleanup. I was sadly mistaken. This morning the ice lady, Laura Hulsey, called. Her idea of compassion is to give me the opportunity to pay for the expense in four installments.

Our worst fears were confirmed recently when we went to the local Home Depot and as soon as they learned it was The Lighthouse that we were dealing with, they literally expressed their condolences. Apparently the abusive reputation of The Lighthouse is well known locally and, trust me, it's now, as they say, about to go "viral"...
i'm just doing my part to spread this virus ;)

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