American Apartment Management Company, Inc. AAMCI Incompetent, Untrustworthy, Mismanaged, Greedy, Slumlords Knoxville, Tennessee

I rent an apartment in a "supposedly" affordable housing apartment complex/Coop.  The Cooperative rents to about 15 section 8 tenants.  It has been managed by the above company for the past four years.  It has and still has serious maintenance and financial problems and complaints by the tenants/coop owners and by the city and its officials, much of which is too lengthy to describe here, but it is the management company for my complex, Arlandria Chiralagua Housing Cooperative and I will describe my experience. 

I have been in my apartment for one year.  From the beginning, I have had nothing but problems with the management on various issues. I moved in June 2009, my first hint of a problem began with the air conditioner that was inoperable and had to be replaced and took a week.

A few weeks later I was bombarded by constant excessively loud music which vibrated my floors and walls in the early mornings and often late at night.  Calls and visits to the rental office for assistance were brushed aside.  There was a lame attempt at a board meeting where I was not in attendance and the manager later called me into the office and claimed I was "hearing things and there was no music."  There were roaches and mice and no pest control for 8 months.  Along came Winter, and the heating system was a nightmare and not renovated or central.  It cost up to $250 to heat the apartment for one month and the rent was $1034 per month.  I am on disability and on section 8, but still had to pay the electric and heat and the 30% of the market rent.  Note, that this apartment was charging market rate rent to HUD and local housing and was not anywhere near renovated or close to being worth it. 

The toilet in overflowed a total of twelve times and each time it was do to a faulty plumbing pipe that the so called plumber never fixed.  All of my towels were ruined trying to get the water off the floor so many times.  The hallways had no lights for about nine months.  I was harassed by a weirdo neighbor guy constantly and had to contact Police, and finally asked to transfer after being assaulted by the same creepy neighbor.  I was treated like the incident did not happen and even laughed at by the manager. In addition, the second apartment did not pass inspection three times due to problems.  The flakey leasing assistant l(again a friend of the board) lied about the first time and the reasons it did not pass.  I was not given any assistance with moving.  I was transferred to the new apartment with a lot of stress and the office acted as if they did some amazingi feat.  I moved in February and the heating system broke two weeks later. The stove (oven part)was also inoperable fand has been since I moved in except for the stove part.  The two maintenance workers who came halfheartedly to check it, managed to totally break the top working part of the stove by pulling out the wires!  They also left screws and dirt on the floor and I had to ask them to come back and fix at least the stove part.  The maintenance workers are atrocious, unreliable and there are only two for a big complex.  This tells you how cheap this company is.

I would call and ask about it off and on and I would get a new lie each time about the part being ordered or that it would be fixed next week.  Then finally after being fed up with their lies, I had to contact code enforcement and then legal aid in which they told them another lie, that they had fixed the stove.  This I did not know. I had to contact code enforcement again and found out that lie and code enforcment told me my new stove along with 28 other new stoves for other tenants would be there the week of July 11th!  I was shocked that this company could neglect so many other tenants as well, although I knew some of the history. I know that they also had to replace only by final code violation enforcement, 100 air conditioners, and other refridgerators of large quantities.  The coop is supposed to be for low income tenants and is largely made up of immigrants and a lot of the mismanagement I believe was the company taking advantage of them.

Another serious problem with this management company is their refusal to at least hire a security guard or fix the locks on the doors of the buidlings and provide keys.  They refuse to assert a minimum amount of managerial responsibility for ground safety. There is constant activity in the hallways and parking lot, boom cars, trash on the grounds, my apartment windows faced the parking lot. and I see it all  Instead of the management office enforcing parts of the lease, they leave it all up to the Police and close the offices on the weekend and do not worry as they enjoy their nice places.  I was told I could break my lease, but it is hard for me to move financially at this time and that is of course why I have not moved yet. I am discusted by this company who claims to be the affordable housing choice.  They are basically absentee landlords located in Tennesee and hire contracted low payed employees and managerial staff.  The managers are focustd on milking the tenants for all they can get and filling up the units with any type tenant. The only time they evict, is when they cannot get paid. This company hires rude, greedy, untrustworthy, lazy, incompetent employees. They have properties in Virginia, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee etc. They also manage several elderly homes.