My husband and I are casualties of this economy, both are recently unemployed. We proactively moved forward looking for the best way to keep a roof over our heads. We just started testing the waters with a home based business and in the process of completing our state and city registration. This business entails having general merchandise delivered to our home which is a condominium complex. My husband meets with the delivery truck, takes all merchandise to our unit and cleans any debris left.
Several deliveries have been made and not once have we been approached by management during these deliveries to inform of any infractions. A note I need to mention is that we never received a handbook when we leased the apartment to make us aware of the policies. I did go into the office to get an entrance key when we moved in and inquired about a handbook and was told by Amanda there were none available (no attempt was made to provide us one later on).
On June 28 2011 we received a delivery of a street legal electrical moped that is considered a bicycle as stated on the documentation from the manufacturer. When attempting to bring it indoors my husband was angrily confronted by the building office manager Amanda who insisted in a very unprofessional manner that the moped could not be taken indoors. She was unnecessarily loud and confrontational in front of other people, continuing by stating that she had received numerous complaints of drilling and hammering late at night, running a business without proper paperwork and now trying to bring in an electrical bicycle moped. My husband was shocked to hear that she was yelling out in front of other people the false accusations without allowing him the proper forum to respond to this verbal abuse. He was able to state that these complaints of drilling and hammering late at night must be about another apartment as it simply is not coming from our unit. If this were remotely true why hear it now, why was it not brought to our attention earlier? My husband did manage to inform her that she should be more concerned about the high traffic of young men and women going in and out of the building into our floor late at night along with the heavy smoking in the stairway across from our unit.
My husband inquired if there was a storage he could keep the moped for one day as it was a gift for his son in college but she was not accommodating in any fashion. At that time she had a cordless phone and started to dial a number during this confrontation and my husband proceeded to bring in the electrical bicycle moped to the apartment.
This so called manager instead of asking to speak to my husband in private to address these false accusations decided to yell out all of this incorrect information for our neighbors to hear. Shortly later I was informed by a neighbor that the police came knocking at our door while we stepped out briefly.
I cannot describe how my nerves were at that time as we make it a point to be honest working people, never any problems and now the police was knocking at my door. I had planned to spend the day with a friend nearby and instead because of all the commotion decided to come home unbeknownst to my husband.
All of a sudden my front door was being opened. I had a panic attack and closed it immediately while calling my husband on the cell not knowing that he was on the phone with the landlord at the time giving him permission to enter. I was too panicked to let him in at that moment and it took another call from my husband to assure me it was ok to let him in.
Apparently after Amanda called the police she proceeded to call the landlord to inform him of all the so called hammering and drilling from our apartment and this obviously concerned him greatly and he contacted my husband. The landlord was assured there is nothing of such nature going on by my husband however he insisted he wanted entrance to the apartment to see himself and my husband not knowing I was home gave him the ok. After the misunderstanding was cleared up the landlord did go into my apartment and was clearly relieved, I imagine after hearing Amanda with her accusations he probably thought we were damaging his apartment.
I have been unable to sleep a full night since this occurred and both my husband and I sense and see what our neighbors are thinking and how they are not even responding anymore when we say hi. They think we are doing something illegal in our apartment and the comfort - which one should feel at home - is no longer there.
We decided not to continue registering the home business here - too much damage has been done - with the neighbors, landlord, police.
We are just going to unwind what we have thus far and finish what items we have for sale so we can continue and register our business elsewhere. It's impossible to continue with our lives and business where our characters have been damaged and all because a manager did not have the decency to simply ask for a meeting and explain her concerns. Or how about some empathy and allow for the moped to have shelter for a couple of hours until accommodations are made.
Why is it that the some managers do not know how to deal with people, how to manage?
We value our character, something that cannot possibly be brought, and we are seriously deciding about seeing a lawyer for the damage caused.