In August of 2007, I was given thirty-two hours to remove myself and my belongings from my apartment because they had decided to rip out the walls for phony mold remediation. When I checked with other such contractors after this incident, I was told by all of them that this was not necessary.  I was told by AIMCO’s representative, Anthony Malfavon, that AIMCO would pay for everything. He even had the nerve to snatch the receipt from the mover out of my hand and said “we will pay for this.”  These strangers arrived as my movers were putting my larger pieces of furniture on the truck. They took everything off the truck and told me that I would not be allowed to keep any of my belongings. They removed me from my apartment and posted security guards at the front and back entrances with instructions that I would not be allowed inside. I could not even water my plants on the porch, many of which died because of this. 

This mold remediation was to take ten days. During this time they removed all my property and threw it into a dumpster which they installed behind my building. My television and VCR were thrown into a plastic bag together and tossed into the dumpster, breaking both items. My blender, in it’s original box, was thrown into a plastic bag with a one gallon bottle of water which when thrown into the dumpster and crushed by other heavy items on top spilled water and destroyed the motor of the blender. Mirrors were tossed into the dumpster with heavy items thrown on top. My refrigerator and stove where left in the apartment but slammed around so badly that they now have dents. The oven did not work when they were finished trashing my place. The door of the refrigerator is totally unbalanced and hits me in the shoulder when I try to get something from inside it. These people opened every jar and package of food. They opened every cardboard box that I had packed and examined the contents. For some odd reason they wrote on a box of my photographs from thirty years ago ‘HOLD.’ They took all my clothing out of the closet and wrapped each item around the hanger very tightly and them dumped each into a plastic bag which was tossed into the dumpster and ended up under heavy items. They confiscated my jewelry box and an old cigar box which contained money I had collected doing recycling for twenty years. I worked extremely hard for those things. The money is gone forever and the jewelry box was sent off to be handled by yet more strangers in the rental office. And on and on.

With nowhere to spend the night I had planned to sleep in my car with my cat. However, my attorney arrived and had a screaming match with the attorney from AIMCO, that they should put me up for the night. I could not find the hotel she had arranged and spent the night in a motel in Santa Monica for a few nights. When I finally figured out where the hotel was, I spent a couple of nights there but kept having problems as to where to park my car. It turned out to be two blocks away in a very crowded parking lot, which was supposed to have with arrangements with the hotel. This did not work out very well as they did not want my car there and told me to remove it or they would tow it away.

When I had had enough of this undue stress I moved to a different motel in Santa Monica. After thirty days, I was finally allowed back into the apartment. I was able to get my sofa moved in so that I could have a place to sleep, my bed being in the bottom of the dumpster. I had to purchase a towel and washcloth, sheet, pillow, and pillowcase. I could not find my clothes or shoes, etc. and had to buy new items just to get by.  Here I am almost two years later. I feel like I am living in a log cabin. The damage which was done to the apartment has been only cosmetically covered. The bare pipes are still sticking out of the kitchen wall, the tops of the window frames are not sealed and open to the bare inside of the framing, there is very thin drywall instead of the nice lath and plaster. None of the outside walls fit properly. The ceilings look like a child’s first attempt at a clay ashtray.   My personal property is still unreplaceable, as most of the items were thirty to forty years old, some belonged to my parents.  I have not seen one penny of compensation of the many thousands of dollars which came out of my pocket to help me survive during an AIMCO attempt to not only get me out of this apartment but to kill me as well.

DO NOT rent from AIMCO. Tell your friends and relatives. Shout it from the highest mountain top. Save yourself this type of grief. And, if you have a moment, please, say a little prayer for me. 

Barbara Eisenberg at Lincoln Place Apartments