March 7, 2005
Amy Sexton, Manager
Lakewood
Apartments
515 John Muir Drive
San
Francisco, California 94132
Steve
Donohue, President
Western National Property
Management Co.
8 Executive Circle
Irvine, California 92614-6746
Ed
Matthews, President
T&S
Realty, L.L.C.
900
East Hillsdale Blvd.
Foster
City, California 94404
Muir
Partners, L.P.
c/o
Joyce Hameetman
John
Muir Corporation
2029 Century Park E. # 1550
Los Angeles, California 90067
References:
1) Letter,
Lakewood Tenant Association to Amy Sexton, manager, Lakewood Apartments, March
27, 2004
2.)
Letter, Lakewood Tenant Association to Amy Sexton, manager, Lakewood
Apartments, August 18, 2004
3.)
Letter, Lakewood Tenant Association to Amy Sexton, manager, Lakewood
Apartments, February 8, 2005
4.)
Letter, Amy Sexton, manager, to Mona Cereghino, February 16, 2005
Dear Ms.
Sexton:
In response to
your recent letter (reference # 4):
1.) We see absolutely no
evidence that Lakewood Apartments has been performing, as you state, "monthly inspections of the doors throughout
the community." First, neither
of us has ever observed you or any member of your staff performing any such
inspection. Second, as related to you in reference #3, your physical numbering
system of the doors is not evident on 32 of the 56 doors inspected.
Consequently, it is apparent that you have no reliable means of identifying
the location of particular doors that might be reported to you by your own
inspector or anyone else. If you are
performing monthly inspections of the doors, there is something seriously
wrong with either your inspection process or your response to those inspections.
The bottom line is whether the doors are performing their required
security function. The obvious evidence
of our own inspections is that many are not.
You are welcome to show us examples of your inspection records and,
perhaps, we can offer some advice to help you make your inspection and repair
process more effective.
2.) You state "...I understand and even share your concern
about vandalism of the doors...."
We did not express any concern about vandalism in reference # 3.
You also state that "[o]ur intention has never been to 'pass
the buck' for responsibility." We
believe that your attempt to attribute to us, falsely, some statement of concern
in reference # 3 related to vandalism of the doors is but one more example
of an attempt by Lakewood Apartments to pass the buck, for Lakewood's failure
to maintain the doors, to vandals. While
we acknowledge that there is some vandalism, many, if not most, of the door
security failures are due to ordinary wear and tear that has not been discovered
and repaired by Lakewood. As to the
vandalism, it is one thing to complain about it and another thing to do something
about it. If vandalism is a significant
cause of Lakewood's failure to satisfy the requirements of San Francisco's
Building Security Ordinance, you have a duty to minimize such vandalism as
part of the implied warranty of habitability that you owe each and every tenant
inherent in the landlord/tenant relationship.
We know of no special measures that you have taken to apprehend and
prosecute either vandals or burglars. This
is why we took the trouble to complain about the response to the information
provided to Ms. Sexton as related in reference # 3.
We believe that Lakewood Apartments' head-in-the-sand attitude regarding
crime at this property is not only not in the interests of the tenants, it
is not in the long-term interest of the property owners either.
Additionally, vandalism is not an excuse for Lakewood to not make repairs.
To the contrary, where vandalism is present, daily or even hourly inspections
of door security may be called for rather than monthly inspections.
3.) You state that "two of the three repairs that you mention
in your letter [ref. # 3] had been repaired prior to receipt of this [ref.
# 3] letter." In fact, we
provided you a copy of our survey of February 3rd and 4th
showing that twenty-nine of the fifty-six doors we inspected had some defect
that either was or could be expected at any time to compromised security of
the building. We provided you photographs of three, as examples.
Assuming you were referring to those three examples, we reinspected
those doors on March 3rd and all three were found still defective.
Only one appears to have been attended to at all: the door leading
from the garage (near parking space # 691) on the 3rd floor of
the "D Building" to the back elevator.
The missing latch was, indeed, replaced.
However, that door also did not have a working door closer at the time
of the February 3rd inspection
and it still does not have a working door closer as of our reinspection March
3rd (Photo # 1).
We found the door to be sitting wide open as, in fact, we have on every
occasion that we have passed through that door in the intervening month.
We tried to draw to your attention in our previous letter (ref. # 3)
to the extreme incompetence and failure of Lakewood's repair efforts in one
glaring example: the outside stairwell door depicted in Photo # 1 of reference
# 3. Apparently, our efforts were wasted
as not only was that door in exactly the same defective condition (Photo # 2) on our reinspection of March
3rd as it was on March 2nd, Lakewood has similarly failed
to appreciate what we believe was or should have been the actual purpose of
replacing the latch for the above-referenced door near parking space # 691:
to make it secure, an objective clearly not met by leaving the door closer
disconnected. We also discovered March
3rd that the latch still sticks in (Photo # 3) on your door # C35, just as
we revealed to you in reference # 3. We
suggest that, in the future, you speak from personal observation before you
make claims about repairs that you have been told, but have not personally
verified, have been made.
4.) You state "...the only way I know to repair this
damage is to actually fix it when it is discovered by a member of our staff,
or reported to us by a resident." We agree with you that it is necessary
for you to identify the defects with the doors, either by your own inspections
or by reports by the tenants, as a first step in the repair process.
However, the legal responsibility is yours, not the tenants.
We detect an inference in your comment that the tenants have not been
doing their part. We know that tenants
have called your offices to report problems with the doors for years. You
cannot fault the tenants for any lack of diligence in reporting such defects
to you, as the many inspection reports submitted to you by Lakewood Tenants
Association (and tenant Ross Wilkinson previously) will attest.
5.) Thank you for acknowledging
the possibility that the management of Lakewood Apartments could benefit from
a change in attitude. This is a good first step in the self-improvement process.
Noting your statement that "...it is hard to constantly muster a
smile when there are people trying to create havoc rather than solving problems.
For instance, last week I received an anonymous letter that called
us 'mutants'." First of all,
while you did not directly accuse us of such conduct, it is a little unclear
as to whether there was an inference intended by your statement that we might
be involved. We want to make it very
clear right now that the officers of Lakewood Tenants Association do not engage
in, or condone, such juvenile conduct. In actual fact, when someone posted
a personally derogatory remark directed towards you on our website bulletin
board a year or so ago, we removed that post promptly upon discovering it.
The true fact is that we have been bending over backwards to be cooperative
with Lakewood Apartments and to bring information to them to assist them in
identifying defective access security doors and other problems despite Lakewood
Apartments' apparent disinterest in receiving such information.
We do not take such disinterest personally and we think that, as the
manager of a large residential property, you also should similarly disregard
anonymous letters containing only personal attacks such as you describe.
One anonymous letter is a red herring.
If there is more to your accusation about "people trying to create havoc"
please fill us in as we are unaware of any such activity.
In concluding reference
#4, you stated that "...it is our wish to work together to
identify problems, search for a solution, and ensure its effectiveness.
We hope that you will join us in achieving these goals." This
is just what we have been trying to do. However,
your letter is addressed only to Ms. Cereghino while our letter of
February 8, 2005 was addressed to you by Lakewood Tenants Association and
signed by both the president and vice-president of that association.
Lakewood Apartments has demonstrated a consistent pattern of pretending
that the Lakewood Tenants Association does not exist by failing to respond
to our correspondence, failing to act upon the information we have provided
to Lakewood Apartments such as related to the rat infestation and the disrepair
of the access security doors and even the false testimony under oath by one
of your predecessors as to the nature of this association.
This denial began before your tenure but appears to manifest itself
again by the way you addressed your letter.
If you really want to foster a cooperative spirit, we suggest that
you begin by accepting the fact that Lakewood Tenants Association is a membership
association that is here to benefit tenants and has, as part of its mission
statement, the objective of doing so cooperatively with the management and
owners of this property. We cannot
force the management and owners to participate in such cooperation; that is
up to you.
Sincerely,
Mona
Cereghino, President,
Ross
C. Wilkinson, Vice-president
Photo 1: Access
Door From Garage (near parking space # 691) to "D-Building" Back
Elevator As Found
Photo 2: Cage Access Door, "D-Building" Exterior Stairwell, 1st Floor Electrical Conduit Interfering With Seating of Door Jamb as Found March 3, 2005
Photo 3: Access
Door from Garage (near parking space 430), "C-Building," 2nd
floor, Latch Sticks In As Found
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