Never Give Up Without a Fight

This is a lesson I learned at a very young age, that I am now going to share with you. With examples ;) My mother, bless her, made me talk to strangers all the time. And before you call child protective services, hear me out. If I needed ketchup for my fries, I had to go back up and ask for it. If someone didn't give me correct change, I had to go back and make a case for it, and get what was owed to me. If I had an issue with a professor at school, I had to go talk to someone about it. By. My. Self. My boyfriend is so proud of me, for how I've handled sticky situations where people are trying to cheat me. He's not that type. He's super easy-going, and willing to just go with the flow, even if the flow is taking him in a direction he may not want to go. I'm not that way ;) I've gotten more aggressive, and more determined to go after people, if they're trying to pull one over on me (or him), in my old age ;) But he keeps me calm, and I make sure we don't get screwed over ;)

So here's the story, in a rather long-winded narration:

For the past year, I have been fighting with the new management company of my apartment complex. Only for the sake of my own privacy, will I refrain from disclosing the complex's name, but I will tell you that Weidner Apartment Homes is the company that recently took over. So far as I have come into contact with them, they are terrible. While my reasoning behind this particular blog lies beyond me lining out their plethora of wrongs, I will run quickly through a smattering of those wrongs, to give you an idea of the crap they've been pulling over the last year, and why it came to a head when I went to (begrudgingly) resign my lease:

• Raised my rent, and changed how they charged for utilities so that my rent went up in two different, and one unpredictable way(s)
• Ripped apart the fitness center to install themselves a new, fancy office (when there was nothing wrong with the old one), and still, after over a year, have not replaced the fitness center as a useful feature (2 treadmills and an elliptical machine, open during their office hours only, do not a fitness center make)
• Set up a new website for online rent payments, touting an "automatic" payment option, that was, in fact, not automatic at all, and caused them to decide I was delinquent in my rent and to tell me they were going to send my case to their attorney, if I did not give them a cashier's check on the spot (I fought that one, too, and won. Jerks.)
• Regularly pulls apart the stairways to the upper floors of the buildings (there is no elevator) so that reaching said levels is inconvenient at best, treacherous at worst (I am fortunate that I live on the top floor which is reachable from both sides of the building, courtesy of a breezeway; the folks living on the 2nd floor are not so fortunate)
• Decided that the entire parking lot, which is already exceptionally cramped with regular, everyday use, needed to be resealed, and so closed of huge sections of it over 3 days, forcing most folks to, speaking of inconvenient, park in the Kmart's overflow parking lot and walk home. Which, realistically speaking, is not that far. 3 or 4 blocks or so. But honestly?? That's absurd. And it did not need to be done
• Various other "improvement"-type expenditures which did not improve my quality of living one bit, and frankly, would have preferred they just take off my rent, for all that. Or replace my microwave, stove, or dishwasher, which I have no trouble believing are original to the building
• Other than that, I keep to myself. I don't speak unless spoken to, and yet, still, they feel the need to bother me with their corporate crap

*deep breath*

So that's the behind-the-scenes stuff, but the real basis of this blog entry is this: Always fight for what you want, for what you deserve, for what is right. And never give up on something you want or deserve or is right, without a fight. Because sometimes, sometimes you win. This just proves my point ;)

These new corporate lackeys have been hassling me to resign my lease with them for two months now. Two months early, I might add. They have left "You're special! Resign now for a super-duper discount!" flyers on my door twice now. Each time I read them, I got more disgusted by their lust for my money. The first time they left a notice, I was about to leave on vacation and the "deadline" for snatching up their super-duper deal, was going to occur during my vacation. So I called, scheduled an appointment for the day after I was set to return, and promptly forgot all about it until about an hour after my appointment, and about 15 minutes before the offices closed for the day. Oops. The second time, I ignored the notice completely. Because, let's face it. All they were telling me was, "We're going to raise your rent when you resign your lease! Ha ha! BUT! If you sign up extra early, we'll raise it less than we would have, had you waited until the last minute! Ha ha ha!" Ok, sure. Fine. I can dig it, a discount for early sign-up. Lots of places do that. Only, it's NOT a discount. They're going to rape me for my rent either way, but it's my choice, as to just how much they're going to rape me. Splendid.

So in addition to the other ridiculous "improvements" and "changes" they'd been making over the past year, this did not help to dilute my overall disgruntlement with them. But, since I just couldn't stomach packing up my life and paying another down-payment somewhere else that I couldn't really afford, and would have to move out of once my honey finishes school anyway, I eventually had to suck it up and schedule an appointment to discuss my lease with the leeches that own the place.

So my honey and I walk down to the leasing office (as the parking lots are all blocked off due to the resealing project that is supposed to make me oh-so-thrilled with their management skills), and the first thing the guy says to me, as he's flipping through my file is, "Ha ha! It just kills me, the discounts they were giving off these places before! Ha ha! Corporate doesn't do that stuff! Ha ha!" I wanted to punch him. But all I said was, "Well, I certainly appreciated it."

Next thing he does is tsk, tsk at me for not coming in when I got their notices about their "discounts" for early renewal. "Ha ha! Would have been much less if you'd come in then... Much less." I decided not to say anything to that one. I just gave him a look and let him continue to ha ha my situation. Because I wasn't in there to bend over, that's for sure.

Eventually we begin to discuss my rent. I pretty much went off on Mr. Ha Ha. I told him about how they'd raised my rent when I moved in, how my rent supposedly also covered all of the amenities the complex offered, and yet I'd been paying for a fitness center that I couldn't use, how my record shows late payments when it was, in fact, their website that was at fault, and how not one of their improvements had improved my quality of living one iota. He told me that rent was decided by several factors, one of them being "market value", which he later explained to me was, "what Corporate thinks they can get for the apartment". Well. I went off on that, too. Told him that Corporate doesn't have to live here, and the place is barely worth what I'm paying for it now, much less more, and just because you can take more from people, doesn't mean you should. He told me that my apartment's "market value" was rated at $95 more than I was currently paying for it. Per month. I told him I disagreed. And then, THEN he brought out the stupid guns.

This guy looks me in the face and says, "What I've been telling people is, they should submit an offer. If corporate thinks the apartment is worth $750, you should tell them you're willing to pay $730! Ha ha! They might even accept it! Ha ha! The worst that could happen is they counter back at $740, and that's still better than $750, ha ha!" I about lost it right there in his fancy office that smelled like new carpet and greed. I asked him, did it really seem rational that I should have to barter for my apartment?? Should it not just be the lowest possible price that Corporate can afford to rent it to me??? Am I even really having this conversation right now?!?! So I told him that I wasn't going to agree to pay any more than I was already paying. I told him that after everything else, after they'd already raised my rent once, I wasn't going to have someone tell me that the "market value" was what determined whether or not I'd be able to afford rent AND food for the next year.

He told me that he would write Corporate an email with my -offer- and he would get back to me. He called no more than 45 minutes later with a response from "Corporate". They accepted my offer.

Long story short: fight. Don't let people push you around, don't let people try and control you or put something past you, or take advantage of you. This goes for apartment complexes, utility companies, stores, corporations, friends, family, significant others. If someone is attempting to get away with something that isn't right, fight. Stay calm, stay rational, know your facts, and stick to your guns. If you don't get anywhere with the person you're talking to, ask for someone higher up. And higher up. Until you get someone who can right the wrong. You may not always win. You may end up exactly where you started. But then again, you may end up winning. And at the very least, you got some practice at it, and you'll be more likely to win the next time.

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

* Other victories include getting the boss an extra 10% off a commercial calendar order, due to a typo, today, and leaving a scathing survey review about Comcast (hey -- they called ME... I just answered their questions!), because their customer service absolutely SUCKS and my bill was too high and no one was willing to help me, a long-time customer. It's now $80/month for cable and internet, which is $100 less than I was paying. Sometimes, it really does pay to fight! ;)