In 2000, my husband and I moved into the Eagle Country apartments in Weare, Nh with our newborn son. When we began moving our belongings into the apartment, we noticed how dirty it was. Food crumbs still on the stove, dirt on the floor, burn marks in the living room rug, etc. We cleaned the entire apartment and settled in.
Four months after our initial move-in, the landlord (June Hannaford) increased our rent $32.00 per month. Three months after that increase, the rent was increased another $32.00. This time it came with a notice from the landlord, stating that her personal living exspenses had increased, therefore the rent on all 12 apartments needed to be increased to compensate her.
After the first winter, when the spring rain arrived, our glass sliding doors began to leak horribly, flooding the kitchen floor and destroying 2 of my area rugs. We complained numerous times, via phone and written complaint notice. Our landlord lived on the property, which left no excuse to her lack of approaching the problem. The sliding doors leaked for 2 years.
During the second summer of our residence, the septic system broke, causing a horrific odor to fill the air surrounding the apartments, and further caused problems with the toilets flushing and backing up. The septic was fixed after numerous complaints, however, it was not fixed properly. A few months later, our toilet started backing up whether it had been flushed or not.
When the apartment above us used their toilet, ours would overflow onto the floor. Eventually, the toilet started to cause back-up in our bathtub. When the apartment above us would flush their toilet, our tub would fill up with feces and urine, dirty water waste. Our kitchen sink would gurgle and water would bubble from the drain, filling our sinks with dirty water also. We lived with this disgusting problem for 2 months before it was corrected. During this time, I made numerous complaints to the landlord, who claimed she didn't have the money to fix the problem. I also made complaints to the town building inspector and health inspector.
That winter, during record low temperatures, my kitchen ceiling caved in and fell down. About 2 gallons of water came down with the ceiling. This happened after Christmas, at 7:00am. I called the landlord and backed my son a duffel bag, instructing her to contact me at my mother-in-law's apartment. For an entire week, my husband and son and I slept on the living room floor of my mother-in-law's apartment. On the 7th day, I visited our apartment to see how the repairs were progressing. Not a single repair had been done, or even attempted. I contacted the town building inspector and filed a complaint.
Two weeks later, after having to put a restraining order on our harassing landlady, we gave our notice and moved out of the apartment. That was January of 2003. To date, the ceiling has NOT been repaired.
Two months after leaving the apartment, we filed a notice requesting our security deposit and last month's rent deposit back. We filed 3 more notices over the following month before we received a reply. June Hannaford stated that we would not be getting our last month's rent back, "so don't even ask." We are presently pursuing a lawsuit against Eagle Country Apartments for our deposit money back and various damages suffered during our 2 year residence.
DO NOT RENT FROM JUNE HANNAFORD! IF YOU DO, YOU WILL UNDOUBTLY SUFFER NUMEROUS RENT INCREASES, UNFIT LIVING CONDITIONS, AND EVICTION DURING WINTER SEASON IF YOU DARE TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ANY OF THE COMPLAINTS MENTIONED ABOVE!!!
Lee
Manchester, New Hampshire
U.S.A.