Saturday, September 9, 2017

I will be leaving Hethwood

      Thursday was not a great day, mainly since I was woken up at 1 again.  I couldn’t get back to sleep and got up around 6:30, not well rested at all.  I did my knee exercises and then decided to go play golf and played pretty well.  The last day I can play is Saturday and then the Meadows closes forever.  I talked to Megan Anderson and she gave me a lot of nonsense and below is the e-mail I wrote to her boss:
Dear Melinda Dunford,


      I am writing to you about the lack of success Megan Anderson has had in resolving a problem I never expected to have when I came to Stroubles Creek.
     I was told that the Stroubles Creek area was only for professionals and graduate students (I will be glad to show you my early notes that make it clear what I was told) and that it would be a quiet place to live.  Even if I wasn’t in chemotherapy for kidney lupus (and I had been extremely ill from January to early August), my apartment should be one where I can get a decent night’s sleep.  That’s why I am paying significantly more for this apartment and that is what I expected for the extra money.  I never would have come here if it wasn’t going to be a place where I could rest comfortably and heal.  My doctors will agree that good sleep is crucial to my recovery and I don’t want to die at Hethwood.   I want to also point out that I am a cancer survivor, having gotten colon cancer almost ten years ago and having to have a colon resection and 5 months of chemotherapy back then.   I also suffer from asthma, hypothyroidism and high blood pressure. 
       Let me give you a little history of my Stroubles’ experience.  For the first 12 days I was really impressed.  The apartment above me was quiet and I thought it was because of the solid construction.  I rode my bike, walked around, practiced my piano (through headphones so I wouldn’t bother anyone), wrote some and thought I had found an excellent place to live.
          But on Saturday, the 26th, I went to bed my usual time, a little after midnight, and at 1:45 in the morning I was awoken by incessant pounding on the floor above me.  I had previously thought that because Stroubles was the most expensive area of Hethwood, it would be better built but clearly the ceiling was not very well built at all.  I called the visitor’s center and left a message and then called the number that was given by your message and talked to Ashley about what to do.  She said that since Hethwood had no security officer that I should call the police, which I did.  They said they sent someone to the apartment to knock on the door but no one answered.  The noise kept up and around 3 I called and two officers came (one a Sergeant Craver), but they refused to go up and knock again and advised me not to go up and knock, and I followed their advice. 
      I talked to Ms. Anderson a number of times and little was done but I would like to focus on yesterday’s phone call after I suffered through another night of interrupted sleep.
      Ms. Anderson said, “That’s how apartment living is.” Perhaps in the rest of Hethwood but that was not what I was told about Stroubles.   She was very rude to me on the phone, and she kept interrupting me.  
      One of the worst things she did was mention the word “harassing” as if somehow my desire to go to bed at 12:15 and complaining when I the noisy tenants above wake me up is somehow harassing them.  That was an utterly ridiculous thing for Ms. Anderson to say.   By their refusal to respond to her requests, I am the one being harassed, not the tenants above. 
       Even more absurd is her allegation that she has not witnessed the noise from above.  Of course she has.  She came over with another woman and a young man (can you send me their names?) and they all took turns going upstairs and walking around and the young man said that the floor needed to be repaired by stabilizing it with screws, and that they would try to do it as soon as possible.  I am still waiting.   Do Ms. Anderson think that the tenants upstairs walk differently than her and her associates?   
       I have only been home two nights in the past week (my friend was seriously injured in a car accident and was in the trauma unit in Wake Forest Baptist Hospital and I went down to take care of his daughters) and both nights the noisy tenants woke me at 1 with their continual noise. 
       All I am asking is that you repair the floor as soon as possible, set up a meeting so I can meet the tenants, express my concerns about how noisy they are and inform them of my illness, and ask them to be quiet after 12:15 (I understand the need to go to the bathroom, but that requires only a few steps and after the floor is repaired the noise should be minimized). 
        Do you think that you are treating me fairly?  I don’t and I want to remedy the situation as soon as possible.  In my view, if I can’t sleep, the apartment is uninhabitable.


Sincerely,

Dr. Justin Askins
Professor of English
Radford University   
After that I went over to help Mary Gorton with the article she was writing and it was pretty good.  She used a lot of good details. 

Friday was a day of relief even though it is going to mean some expense for me and a lot of work.  I spoke with Melinda and she basically said that there was nothing Hethwood could do about the upstairs tenants.  They have the right to walk around whenever they want and they don’t have to meet with me.  She did agree that the floor would be repaired but she said that even if it was repaired the floor was going to be noisy.   I told her that I had my notes that I was told that only graduate students and professionals could rent apartments in Stroubles but that was a lie.  So, halfway through the conversation she offered to let me out of my lease since there was no way Hethwood could fix the problem so I agreed to her offer.  After I got off with her, I called Darbi but she is out of the realty business and she gave me Peg Warren’s number and I left her a message.  I decided to go play my final round of golf at the Meadows and that was fun and I played pretty well.  I later talked to Dave and he thought I should rent a place, not buy one right now, and that makes sense because if I end up not liking it I would be stuck or have to sell it.  He mentioned a lease to own option and I will ask about that.  Fortunately, I didn’t put up any pictures in my apartment and a lot of my stuff is still in boxes so the move is not going to be that hard.  I hope I can find a place in a reasonably short time but after moving my guest room mattress into the living room I did sleep okay.  I hope that will last until I leave.  I talked to Cathy and Lou had a low fever but at least started going to the bathroom so that is good.  They will be back on Sunday and I hope Lou feels better soon.  I also went to see Dr. Hurd this morning and the mark on my face is benign so no problems there. 



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