Zick Apartments

Homeless man lived in a common area for weeks. During my 18 month stay at Zick Apartments I smelled smoke coming from the basement and found a homeless man smoking cigarette. I was told by the cops and a company representative that there was evidence he’d been there for a while based on how many personal items he had stashed around. He felt at home enough to smoke a cigarette, so probably weeks at least and possibly months.

With Zick Apartments and Black Swan you get the safety of a crack… house and the overbearing surveillance of a college dorm. There is a halfway house just 1 block away from here, and they use 4-digit codes for all the doors here. That’s the same security level as an iPad. I asked them to change it to a 6-digit code after the homeless guy and they said no because too many people would forget the codes. That actually means it’s less secure than some iPads. Anyone can get in by pretending they forgot the code and asking a resident. I don’t know what kind of scary disaster it’ll take for them to get real security with key fobs. Last I heard they replaced the front door, but not the back door that was actually broken, and that’s only after they harassed me to the point where it was inevitable I’d write a negative review. They would not have acted if their feet were not held to the fire.

Management started to retaliate against me after I reported the homeless guy getting in. I started getting lease violations over little things, presumably because they wanted me out after seeing such an embarrassing situation. When I say little I mean they found cardboard boxes outside my door (in the basement where they weren’t in the way), and because my cat tore down my window blinds. I took issue with the lease violations and told them they were ridiculous to give me trouble after they let someone squat in the basement, and they responded by threatening eviction and performing 2 mandatory inspections for my unit within 3 weeks. I was forced to rush out of the unit and forfeit a month’s rent just to be rid of that situation. They also deducted $520 for 4 new blinds and a fresh coat of paint. When I asked why the charge was so high for routine repairs their facilities manager did not even reply. Read More