This is from a time when I answered for a rental/construction company in Niagra Falls, New York. The name of the company was rather vague, and the callers were always furious because they would have problems for months on end and could never speak directly to anyone with the office as the lines were always forwarded to the answering service. This is probably the worst phone call that I have had for this particular company.
This woman rented a home for her and her children in the early fall. About two weeks after she moved in, a major sewage backup occurred in the basement, leaving it three feet deep in raw sewage. The problem was due to a combination of a botched fix on behalf of the rental company and heavy rains in the area. The rental company was at an obligation to fix it. Her conversation with me was in January.
For a little over three months there had been over a foot of water in the basement. Nothing that was in the basement could be salvaged. The basement walls were coated in black mold. If you opened the door to the home you were choked with mold spores. The mold was growing on her furniture. It was in her photos. It was throughout anything that had been left in the home since she abandoned it in October. She had to pull her children out of school for a semester due to her move and instability of a permanent residence. She was also still being charged rent on this property that was 100% unlivable.
She spoke with me for about 30 minutes. Apparently she went to the office multiple times in person and no one was there. She had personal phone numbers for three of the employees. One of the numbers connected directly to the answering service, one was shut off, and the other would ring endlessly with no voicemail. At the time of her phone call she was in talks with an attorney and the Empire State Board of Health and Human Services, because not only was she still being charged rent, they were taking her to court for nonpayment dating back to October, when she reported the issue.
I have no idea what happened after her phone call with me. Throughout the entire call I was very sympathetic with her, and agreed that the management sounded like a group of inept pricks, and more or less put her opinion in the ticket that I created. It was worded in such a way to make it look like I agreed with her, but was also vague enough to make it look like I was just writing down a summary of what she told me. This was a four-paragraph ticket that I made for them. Shortly after this, the company placed a limit on our service tickets of five words.
This was the most extreme phone call I had dealing with this company, but the gist was all the same. They would look great and be attentive and almost overly caring until you signed a lease and moved in. After that you were on your own. They were there to collect rent payment and if you have a problem good luck.
The really screwed up part: I checked while writing this. The company still exists somehow. I am considering copy-pasting this to a google review of them, but I am not sure of the legality. Wish that I could remember this woman’s name so I could look up how her court case turned out. If anyone reading this lives in the Niagra Falls area, beware of this shitty company. I don’t know how they are still in business because this phone call was four years ago, nearly five, and every single call every day was some sort of issue like this that was not being resolved.
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