Complaint Review: Gramercy Park Apartments - Houston Texas

My experience with Gramercy Park was so bad I created a website - you can see it at http://http://www.GramercyParkAbuse.com.

Three years ago, the carpet was supposed to have been replaced by the day of my move-in. That did not happen, so my movers had no choice but to put my furniture on the old threadbare, pet-stained carpet. Saying it would be too much hassle to replace the carpet now that heavy furniture was on it, they gave me a small discount on the rent for that year ($40/month, basically the cost of an additional garage rental).

Immediately after we moved in, the A/C failed - for all of the three years I've been here, on days where the outside temperature is above ninety, the A/C vapor-locks - the compressor will not start, and the fan either blows warm air, or as is the case more recently, doesn't function at all. If I physically shake the outside compressor or futz with the thermostat enough, sometimes I can get one cooling cycle out of the system before I have to do it all over again. Virtually every night in the summer, me or my daughter wake up at 2:00 a.m. too hot to sleep, and I have to mess with the A/C to try to get it to work for ten minutes (enough that we can sleep), which can take an hour or more. We've taken half a dozen videos of the situation and shown them to management, and all they do is replace the thermostat (or on one occasion, flush the Freon in the system). 

Despite having to live with filthy carpets (we've had the carpets cleaned at our own expense three times, and each time the stains come back - the cleaners say the stain is in the pad and the carpet is too thinly worn and must be replaced... The last cleaner refused to do the work unless we waived their warranty) and virtually no cooling in the summer, our rental cost has been jacked up over 12% - more than one full month's rent in the course of a year - in the last three years. On top of that, Memphis Jews in the name of The Fogelman Group have taken over management of the complex recently, and in our last lease offer (one we have rejected - we are moving to Camden at Oakcrest) raised our rent another 8%. 

The Fogelman Group is famous for taking over declining and marginal properties, running them into the ground, and turning them into Section 8 tenements (taxpayer-subsidized slums for blacks, illegal Mexicans, and poor white trash). The process began immediately after their acquisition. Beautiful, mature, and healthy trees on the west side of the property were cut down, and a decorative fountain removed, because management didn't want to pay the electricity cost of the architectural lighting and the water pump. Sidewalks all over the property that had buckled or raised were simply ground down instead of fixed properly. In those few cases where concrete was replaced, they didn't even try to match the pebbled surface of the original sidewalk. A/C compressors on the property are exposed, rusty, or in a variety of mismatched colors, brands and sizes, some with the manufacturer's ugly warning labels still affixed to them (the Jewish landlord's mantra is "never throw out something you can make a tenant pay for"). 

Large vacant areas of bare earth are exposed where flowers and shrubs once grew. Shrubs and trees are in pathetic states - tall palms are now brown and diseased at the top for lack of water and care. The bottom rails of iron fences throughout the property are rusted out. Gate entry code panels don't work, hinge covers are missing, and inside switches are a mishmash of sizes and types from Radio Shack. 

The residents hear nearly weekly of crimes and major equipment breakdowns across the property through the parents who gather at the school bus stop in the morning. The Jews and East Indians running the place are so callous and mercenary that they refused to allow the mother of an autistic child (and two other small children) on the property with no other source of incomes to place in the mail area a poster advertising child care to residents. We are placing our final rental payment in escrow and filing a small claims suit against Gramercy Park, and encourage other residents to do the same. 

Bottom line is we were able to get more space in a much better-maintained complex for the same money.