Equity Residential Rivers Bend Apartments Bait & Switch. Outrageous Fees, No Complaint Support Windsor, Connecticut

1st the Bait & Switch: You are given a tour and shown an aprtment that is "similar" to what is available. You are not allowed to see your actual apartment until "move in time". Because they are "working on it". Move in time is on Friday at 5pm. If you don't like it, you don't have to sign lease. But, what are you to do on Friday night with your moving truck out front and your prior lease terminated?

The apartment you get is similar only in floorplan. Everything is older, more run down, cheaper. The kitchen you were shown is small but efficiently laid out, like a nice galley style. The kitchen you get is not in any way similar or nice. Later you learn that the apartment you were shown is a "corporate lease" and that none of the rental units available are at all like that.

Now the fees: You pay for your own water, "pro-rated" by overall tenant use with no proof whatsoever that it is fair or equitable. You pay for trash pickup, again supposedly in relation to your dumpster and the number of units, amount of trash. It appears that this is not true either. Or a smallest size dumpster emptied twice a week and used by 47 units costs over $600 a month. I checked, the going rate in this area for that service is less than half that. The amenities cost too. Key fee for fitness center. Must buy laundry cart to do wash.

Other conditions: poor security, criminal activity in complex management does nothing about. Poor maintenance inside and of grounds. Leaky roof for months. Turns out to be a structural defect they were fully aware of when renting it. No insulation in windows, doors or basement/pipes. Pay your own heat. Requested to turn up heat at your own expense to keep uninsulated pipes from freezing.

Although management may take weeks or months to get around to doing what they say they will do, it doesn't go both ways. After the 1st, rent payments incur late charge. If not paid by 12:01 am of the 10th, an eviction notice is "served" at a cost to you. Doesn't matter if you contacted them about your problem (for instance, having a heart attack) or that you have the money (won't accept it), you must go to court (more fees) only to tell the lawyer you've been trying to pay and then being allowed to pay. The objective seems to be to rip off the tenant for as much as they can possibly get.

Complaints: Office staff turns over frequently so manager claims they never told you that or employee "no longer here because of these issues". Manager blames everything on "corporate", she is not responsible for anything, it's all the fault of corporate or contractors (which of course she's not responsible for). When confronted will deny ever having heard of the problem before. Although the corporation has a "Resident Relations" email and phone, they don't deal with complaints. Nothing but the run around everywhere.