I've heard that the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting the different results. Well according to this abridged definition I think I can classified as insane. About a year ago my room mates and I approached the apartment complex we live in (AMLI at Oakhurst North in Aurora, Illinois) about the status of our kitchen floor. It all started with a leaking water heater that caused the linoleum tile around the area to peel off the ground, the rest of the floor was soon to follow. When we told the maintenance department about the problem, they said they were too busy with the coming snow storms and wouldn't be able to replace the floor until spring. Naively, we actually believed them.
Spring rolled around: nothing hapens. I talked with the "head of maintenance" and he assured me that they would be out the next week, he told me that several apartments had this very same problem, and "added us to the list". Another month goes by, no new floor. It was around this same time that our lease ran up and they offered us a slightly lower rent if we signed a 13 month lease as opposed to the normal 12. We agreed, but w were sure to bring up our current floor situation with the leasing agent, and she promised that the floor would be replaced.
Fast forward two more months to last August: after being fed up with the shitty state of our kitchen floor. (By now most of the tiles had already come up, and if you walked bare foot through the room you would have tiles stuck to your feet.) I call our leasing office and ask for the management, she proceeds to give me a story about a list of apartments that are scheduled to have their kitchen floors resurfaced. (Where have I heard this before?) I told here I was fed this line before and that I expected results. She assured me that the floor would be replaced. Then just like the ending of Matrix Revolutions, nothing fucking happened.
It was then when I officaly gave up caring, I stoped cleaning the kitchen (and the rest of the apartment) all together. That takes us to late November and the strangest thing happens: someone from our leasing office called my room mate. They said that maintenance would be at the apartment the next day (November 24th, 2009 (Almost 1 year to the day after the initial complaint)) to replace the kitchen floor. The fact that they called us gave me a new sense of hope, like Jesus must have felt when he thought he would come back after being crucified.
Needless to say, my kitchen floor was not replaced. "What was their latest excuse?" you may be wondering, well they informed me that maintenance had put a hold on the repair. I asked them to explain what the fuck that ment, but they didn't know. I then told them the above story (only with less Jesus jokes and more profainity) and followed it up by telling them that my room mates and I will not be resigning our lease. What I have learned from this experience? Two things: 1) Fuck this aparment, and 2) We're going to have to throw another crazy ass party here only this time I will really tear this shit hole apart.
Random thought: Illinois basketball looks pretty good this year.
