After Hurricane Ian flooded local apartment complex The Place at Alafaya, affected UCF students and families were expecting compassion and assistance; instead, they received a revised rental agreement.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, The Place, which is just minutes away from UCF, got 5 feet of water from flash flooding. Students said they didn’t know what to do or where to go and had to watch as their belongings and cars became submerged in water. They said much of it could have been avoided if The Place had communicated with them.
Hailey Stack, a junior health information and information management major, said FEMA came to inspect her apartment, and she was told she couldn’t live there anymore. This led to The Place having to terminate rental leases, but in order for residents to get their deposits back, students were asked to sign a revised rental agreement — one that asked them not to go to press with their negative experiences.
“We just talked to him, and he looked at our apartment; he walked right out and said ‘total loss.’ There’s nothing we can salvage, and it is uninhabitable,” Stack said.
Hollie Mammel, the mother of one of the residents at The Place, said she frequently visits her senior English major daughter at her apartment. Her daughter was one of the many residents who said they had already paid October’s rent — a month’s worth of rent for an apartment they were told they couldn’t stay in. To get their money for that month back, the community’s administration asked residents to sign a document stating they wouldn’t talk to the press. Mammel then said the administration called the release of that document an “error.”
The document that The Place sent reads as follows:
“TENANT further agrees that TENANT shall not say or make any negative or disparaging statements, remarks or reports regarding LANDLORD, AGENT or RELEASED PARTIES shown in above General Release of All Claims in this Agreement, in any broadcast channels, including but not limited to negative or disparaging statements, remarks or reports in blogs or internet postings, newspaper articles or letters, interviews, or press releases, and to withdraw same if already made by TENANT.”
Mammel said she thinks The Place fixed its error because she believes UCF got involved. She said her and her daughter would not sign anything from The Place administrators until they get legal advice from the UCF legal team.
Nicholas Pareis, a junior materials science and engineering major at UCF. He is a resident at The Place and lives with his girlfriend, who requested anonymity due to the conditions of the revised rental agreement. Upon receiving the agreement, they were both left questioning its terms.
“They sent us a whole bunch of revisions, and we have received a lot of inconsistent information,” the girlfriend said.
Pareis and his girlfriend both noted the multiple changes The Place had made to its rental agreements.
“They revised their, like, documents that they wanted to us to sign like four times,” Pareis said. “like, they keep sending new ones and saying, ‘Oh, there was a typo, or this was incorrect,’ and whatever.”
On Oct. 7, Michelle Campbell, regional vice president of The Place, said the complex was helping residents with taking in their keys and handing out care packages. Campbell said the document sent out was a mistake and that they immediately fixed it.
“It was a mistake that was the first legal document that went out, and it was an error, but we quickly tracked it and corrected it,” Campbell said. “We are not having them sign anything.”
Pareis’ girlfriend said she disagreed with The Place’s request for residents to not talk to the press.
“I feel like we should share our story because it is a difficult time for everyone,” she said. “We find comfort in going online and reaching out to others in a similar situation.”
As The Place continued to revise its documents, its residents received different information on how they were getting their October rent or deposits back.
Pareis said that The Place administration did not help, and they would have to get their security deposit from the rental insurance company.
Pareis’ girlfriend said The Place administrators tried being helpful by talking to neighboring apartment complexes for displaced students to move into and asking them to waive the security deposit.
In fact, Campbell said the complex had partnered with 30 communities, and sent out some information letting residents know that those communities would look at waiving some fees and deposits for some residents affected.
Allyson Langston got accepted into UCF for business finance but said she took a gap year to get situated. She was recently supposed to check in with her UCF Counseling and Psychological Services counselor when she received a seven-day notice to vacate her apartment; she missed her appointment.
“It’s kind of like okay, we are already kind of down,” Langston said. “Can you stop kicking us while you are at it?”
Langston said that the administrators informed them they would not get their deposits back until they gave The Place administrator’s office their apartment keys. Still, Langston said cleaning up the flooded apartment and finding a new place to live without the money from that deposit was difficult, so she’s couch-hopping with friends.
“Many of us are riding on that money because we don’t get paid for another two weeks,” Langston said. “Many places, whether you suffer through the hurricane or not, are making you pay moving fees.”
Langston said that she felt like the administrators wanted to clear the apartments out so they could fix them and start making money again. She felt like they had no care or consideration for the residents that were there.
“The lady was there yesterday and had a nasty attitude, and she did not even care about the residents,” recent UCF graduate Sunsaree Vanaken said. “Also, the other apartment complexes are not even picking up the phones.”
Stack said that she understands The Place’s side and that there is not much it can do. She said she wished The Place could’ve helped a little more with the apartments but understands it had to do so independently. Stack said she and her boyfriend received their deposits, and The Place clarified the revised paperwork.
Campbell said if a resident turns in their key, it means they took everything they wanted from their apartments and may have left things they didn’t want.
Campbell said that some apartments were not nearby and that there was limited availability due to residents from Arden Villas also being affected by the hurricane and looking for places to live.
“We also refunded any rent paid in advance and have security deposits that will be here at the site for them,” Campbell said on Oct. 7. “They don’t have to turn in their keys; they will get their deposit no matter what because we know it will take some time to get some housing.”
But Mammel, Vanaken and Langston have all said they’ve still been struggling to get their money back.
“We went back to retrieve a piece of Shannon’s jewelry, and someone was driving around giving out McDonald’s sandwiches,” Mammel said. “A small consolation after thousands of dollars lost.”