It is the beginning of a new school year and many students have chosen to leave University Housing for the liberating spirit of apartment life. Unfortunately, that feeling of freedom may be short-lived as inexperienced tenants move into their new homes.
As a new lessee myself, I have suffered the awful stomach-dropping moment of realization that follows finding a grade-A disaster zone instead of a clean apartment on move in day. And, like many other Madison students, I was confronted with the same emotion as I slowly discovered my landlord was not legally responsible for the mess.
When I signed with JSM properties, I was under the impression that each apartment underwent rudimentary cleaning and maintenance after the end of a lease, therefore I was expecting a habitable and allergen-free environment in which my roommates and I could begin to live. This is what most other companies promise as well, but this is clearly not what I discovered.
So we sent an email, began cleaning and waited.
For days.
In their defense, our emails did not reach the landlord immediately due to a change in their email address. Even so, it seems like common sense for landlords to give their tenants notice of such a change, since email is one of the primary forms of correspondence today. It is their responsibility to make sure tenants have updated information and can contact them whenever necessary. This oversight added to my frustration.
When a JSM representative finally made his way to our humble abode, little was resolved. Though the property manager was personable and kindly sought to rectify the situation, it felt as though he was downplaying the issues. Cigarette burns in the carpet and a missing rail on the balcony are livable —to be sure—but broken furniture and cat hair? Not so much, particularly when half the apartment’s inhabitants are allergic to cats.
Worse, after consulting my lease I discovered JSM had a full 60 days to complete any necessary cleaning or repairs and would not be compensating me for the eight hours of intense cleaning I endured my first night there. Management made it obvious we were unimportant to them. They are such a large business that we didn’t really matter.
They unsuccessfully deodorized the carpet which smelled strongly of a litter box, as evidenced by the occasional cluster of cat food and sprinkling of litter under the couch cushions. Instead of replacing the couch altogether they deferred real cleaning services for the bathrooms and kitchen. And, to add to their failings, when the painter came through to touch up putty, scuffs and even burn marks on the walls, he informed us that our apartment had likely been missed altogether.
Everyone expects some light cleaning when they change residence, but JSM truly failed to provide an inhabitable living space. After seeing other apartments in the same complex, it became clear that mine was one of the exceptions. On the whole, JSM’s other tenants seemed satisfied—and for good reason. Their apartments were pristine, tainted at most by a single cobweb or a dusty countertop.
But while my apartment may have been an exception to the rule, this one failure is enough to discredit the JSM establishment, which owns several properties in the Madison area. No one that saw the state of the apartment would dare to recommend JSM in the future, myself included. I am convinced that our apartment did not receive the quality inspection promised by JSM properties, and though I must admit their representatives had pleasant personalities, nothing can make me forget the black toilet bowls and the golf-ball-sized dust bunnies I found hanging from the fan. Perhaps a different cleaning company in the future, JSM?
Kate is a sophomore with a double major in English and Spanish. Do you have any move-in horror stories or success stories? Send any and all feedback to the opinion desk at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
