The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
For my sanity: am I overreacting?
The apartment complex I’ve been living in for 4 years suddenly changed the parking policy and, one week after sending the email mentioning the change, towed my wife’s car that cost us $300 to get back.
We consider this an overzealous enforcement of an aggressive policy (the garage is never more than half full), and we are extremely pissed, but management is not playing ball with us after we asked for them to give us a credit.
We’re moving out now, so if we short-pay our last month’s rent by the amount of the impound invoice, what are the ways it could bite us in the butt?
We pretty much have zero recourse otherwise.
Can you elaborate on the policy? Whether you're overreacting or not depends on whether the policy is arbitrary and intended to generate revenue or was implemented for good reason and the consequences are intended to be a heavy-handed enforcement mechanism. If, for example, the new parking policy was intended to provide open space for moving vehicles or delivery in a certain time window, I would consider it reasonable for the complex to start towing people straightaway in order to keep that clear.
I'm actually kind of surprised how many people are jumping straight to, "no, fuck them" without determining why they have this policy in the first place. If you've ever rented property out, you've probably had an experience where you only started doing something like this after a dozen violations of what you thought was a pretty reasonable policy.
Sure. There was no catalyst. New management moved in a year and a half ago, and this is just another change they’re making about how things are run. Parking is in a multi-level parking garage that has never been near capacity, so no problem that’s being solved as far as I can see. They claim increased residency, but I’ve never seen with my eyes as many vacant units as there are now since we’ve moved in.
Old policy: open parking. Residents and guests alike are allowed anywhere that’s not handicapped or a clearly-marked reserved space.
New policy: You must register your car, and if your car plate number is not on the list we give to the tow truck operator (who visits nightly!) he’s going to take it away.
Here’s the thing though, our old management collected our vehicle information anyway, and when I marched in the office and asked a useless rep what the deal was, she showed me in their system my wife’s car make, model, year, and color. Yes, we changed the plate number when reregistering with the county, and it didn’t match, so away it was towed.
As far as I’m concerned the car had every right to be in the space it was taken from. Our sin was not complying with what, as far as I’m concerned, is an internal record-keeping matter for the back office. They’ve pissed off a lot of residents with this, because they’ve been sending increasingly defensive reminders by email lately.
The question is, is this worth your time?
You could escalate this to your local court by launching a claim (or shortpaying rent if the building consortium is your landlord). But is it worth the hours of paperwork and attendance to escalate this issue? There is no guarantee if you escalate this that the building will back down and quickly refund you (or let the shortfall in rent go).
I can't really see a solution that would be less than $300 worth of time here. I'd consider just moving on with your life and being upset for a short time and getting over it, rather than potentially get entangled in a legal dispute for what in hindsight is a small amount of money. If you push this through you may regret it once your emotions have cooled.
As per other comments, don't do anything illegal and try to get your revenge through legal means such as leaving a horrible (truthful) review on the building on various sites.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link