Crest Asset Management and Davenport Apartments Warning

I moved into my last apartment complex (it used to be builder-managed and called "Somesuch Place", now it's managed by Crest Asset Management and called "The Davenport") in January, 1995. It had taken me nearly a month of searching to find a place I really liked, a place which felt like home, and where I felt I would be able to live happily for many years. Indeed, before I moved in I explained to the Huie Properties management that I generally move in and just stay... and they promised me that I was just the kind of tenant they liked.

I believe that when someone moves into an apartment, they are making a commitment and have the right to expect that they can continue to stay there for as long as they are willing to pay the rent, and abide by the reasonable rules set by the landlord. Not only is there simply the cost of moving itself... there are significant costs involved in change-of-address notices (especially true for those with home offices, or who distribute shareware software with a long lifetime in cyberspace), turning on of utilities, perhaps installation of special computer data communications lines, and even in getting appropriate furniture, artwork, patio equipment and plants, and other things. There's also the considerable disruption in people's lives (and ability to earn their living) consumed by both the lengthy search for a suitable (and available!) apartment, as well as the time required to prepare for (and recover from) such a relocation.

I truly believe that most landlords understand and appreciate what it means to call a place "home". Whether you own or rent, a person still needs to think of their place as "home", and it's wrong to uproot someone unnecessarily from that home. Up to now, I've apparently been blessed with good apartment management, and where they wouldn't dream to callously upset the world of happy, long-term tenants.

That situation changed with the notice that the apartment complex where I was living (as of June 1998) wanted to rehab all their apartments, and that we had to move out of our homes to let them do that.

It might be different if the "rehab" were going to actually improve the property. Instead, the property will be significantly less desirable after the rehab than it was before. Consider what they intend to do:

Rip out (or just paint over) the decorator wall coverings
Remove the cultured marble sinktop in the downstairs half-bath and replace it with Formica
Wall off the back den (the space I used as my home office) and try to turn it into an additional bedroom... but one where the only bath and shower facilities are upstairs, and bizarrely you have to go past the kitchen, through the dining room, past the living room, up the stairs and through one of the other bedrooms to get to either of them
Paint over the brick hearth and other previously nice design accents
Remove the mantel over the fireplace
Crown moldings (OK I suppose, but personally I don't think that's worth much... I personally wouldn't pay even $5 a month more for an apartment with them)
Add a builtin microwave (OK, that's nice I suppose, but it's not as if anybody renting an apartment this size... supposedly 1912 square feet... doesn't already have one!)
Remove a perfectly nice stove with a timer and self-cleaning oven and replace it with a new one that has neither of those features
Paint over the wood-finish kitchen and bathroom cabinetry, and replace the wood-finish doors with crummy-looking white formica. The new doors are also smaller than the original openings, so they have to nail crappy-looking painted boards into the openings to fill in the gap.

After subjecting us to the hassle, stress and expense of such a move... and making the apartment less desirable to live in... for all the trouble, they are offering the now-screwed up apartment (OUR HOME) back to us... for a 50% increase in rent. Yes, the apartment I was paying $895 for will (supposedly) rent for $1350 after they screw it up. It's not even as if they can blame "inflation" (there has been basically none) for such a totally outrageous overnight 50% hike in rents.

Of course, it's short-term tenants... the ones who don't plan to stay somewhere more than a few months anyway... who tear up apartments. Long-term tenants realize that if they mess up a place, they're going to have to themselves suffer from the results of that abuse... so tenants like me try to take good care of the place where they live. I don't allow smoking in the apartment, take off my shoes at the door, and I fully expect that when I'm gone the carpets will be (other than the imprints of where my furniture was) almost ready to move in a new tenant, despite me having lived here for over three years.

One of my neighbors has lived in his apartment for 17 years... it's insanity for a landlord to move out such a long-term tenant and replace him with someone who isn't going to have that kind of commitment. That man would probably stay in that apartment for the rest of his life, continuing to pay rent every month forever, unless the landlord stupidly forced him out. But that neighbor also has to move out.

Another neighbor at the other side of the apartment complex has lived here ten years, and has custom paint, custom draperies and other stuff that she's put in (all at her own expense of course) to create a truly beautiful, showplace "home" for herself. They're reportedly going to force her to move out, too, so they can paint over everything and totally rape and destroy her heavily-personalized "home" as well.

Since as a computer consultant (and with the whole Year 2000 mess then coming up) I simply couldn't take the risk of having the rug pulled out from under me (and thus my clients) again during such a frantic time, I was simply spooked... I didn't feel I can ever trust any landlord anymore. So I decided I simply had to buy a home for myself, where at least the landlord and I will have the same concerns!

At first, I thought that I was going to try to stay at The Davenport... and keep the same apartment I loved so much... despite the increased rent, and even with the incredible hassles and expense of having to move out for a few months, and then back in once they've screwed the place up. But reason tells me that a management company which thinks it's okay to commit this moral crime against their residents once (and after having talked to them, I'm convinced that they really don't care what they're putting us through) will have little compunction against doing it again someday, and if I stayed there I'd be just asking for more such abuse in the future.

I will strongly urge anybody thinking about moving into the Davenport Apartments (14500 Dallas Parkway, Dallas TX), or indeed any property managed by Crest Asset Management, to strongly consider the character and management practices they are thus probably subjecting themselves to. Sooner or later, I predict that you'll regret living here, too.

...and you won't even have had the pleasure of living here before the idiots screwed up your apartment.

Postscript: I finally was forced to move from my once-happy home, along with basically all the other unhappy former residents from The Davenport Apartments, in the summer of 1998. Ultimately, I improved my situation... but moving was sure a bitch, and cost many, many thousands of dollars. At least I'll never be subjected to the vagaries of such an idiotic apartment management company ever again... this time I am the owner of the property.

Post-Postscript: In November 2000 I received the following note from a current renter at the Davenport Apartments who had (too late, it seems) found this page online. In her note, she writes:

I am a current Davenport Apartment tenant and have been on and off for at least 10 years. The living conditions are deplorable....foundation cracking, cracks all in the walls, severe water damage, just to name a few. A bunch of us are fed up!! I am a single mom going through a divorce and trying to support my daughter by myself! They keep increasing the rent periodically with no maintenance to my current problems!! There is so much mold and mildew in the walls that my daughter is always sick and my friends don't feel well after leaving my place. I was wondering if anyone had done anything LEGALLY about this! Is there anything I can do? Thanks for your help and I was so stunned when I came across your letter on the internet!! I should have done the same thing!
---Holly Studer holly_studer@tac-americas.com

My recommendation is to contact the city building inspectors. There are certain standards for safety and health which a property must meet in order to be declared habitable, and failing those standards a building or property can be condemned. Threatening a building's owners with a credible condemnation proceeding or revocation of a property's certificate of occupancy is usally a good way to get their attention. The problem is that it's usually a pyrrhic victory, in that you'll probably be forced to move out eventually anyhow (either by increased rental costs or the condemnation itself!). In this particular case, the property costs in that prime location along Dallas Parkway have probably gone up so much that the owner's ultimate plan for the property is to tear it down anyhow.

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