Movin' Out

For the past 7 months Jill and I have been living in Pleasanton California. Come August 18th, we will excitedly move out of our one bedroom apartment. The city of Pleasanton is not the problem; the apartment complex management is the problem. We live in a complex of about 500 units (Stoneridge Apartments) and if our apartment burned to the ground, the L.A. based corporation, Lyon Management, would not care one bit. (based on multiple phone calls to L.A. to deal with them). Within the first week of moving in here, both my car and my girlfriend’s car were broken into; they stole her car and totaled it, and stole my car stereo. So we may be a bit biased.

After weeks of dealing with this ordeal, we contacted the head manager of Lyon Management down in L.A. and she would not give me the time of day. She did not even consider my suggestions to put up necessary security lights in the car park and possible surveillance. She basically told me this is my problem, they will not change and I need to deal with it; without ever apologizing for our distressing experience. We have also had a miserable experience with the on site management, maintenance not fixing the problems with the unit and other security issues. I understand that having 500 units in a complex is a lot, but come on people, give us at least a time frame to fix a air conditioner or leak in the sink (don't tell us you will show up if you are not going to).

We are now moving to a new complex in San Ramon, three miles away from the schools where we will be working, into a two bedroom/two bath unit on the corner that backs up to a grassy field at the edge of a golf course. The complex has only 190 units so the management is much more personable and we already have a great vibe about it.

It has been a frustrating experience, but I try to look at the positive side of it all now, we are safe, alive and movin' out! I have also learned many lessons from dealing with the bad side of this that I will certainly be able to apply to similar life experiences to come.