quality of life

Photo by PoPville flickr user Mr. T in DC

“Dear PoP,

My DC apartment building has been sliding into deeper and deeper disrepair, yet rent continues to go up. My specific question is about access to water. My building cuts off the water to entire building at least once a month – but usually more than once a month. We get a notice posted outside the front door the day before this happens and we’re told to not expect water from 9:30am-4:30pm while some maintenance is being done. This is seriously inconvenient when you’re on an erratic schedule (like myself being a student about to defend my thesis) and you only know the night before that the water will be turned off the next day and you will now have to change your schedule around to shower, do laundry, and cook and clean.

What rights do I have as a tenant when my water is being turned off during the day with little notice and this is occurring more than once a month?”

I realize this might be better for legal question of the week but I already submitted one for this week. So has anyone dealt with a similar situation? If so how did you deal with it? Does it say anywhere in the lease how often utilities may be disrupted? Obviously in emergencies there is nothing that can be done but does shutting off the water once or more a month sound reasonable?

Photo by flickr user Snowesq

“Dear PoP,

I had a horrendous experience with Diamond Cab I wanted to share with your readers in hopes I can spare them from a similar experience. Also, I wanted to see if you and/or your readers had recommendations for reliable taxi cab companies and/or car services.

I called Diamond at 1:20am on 3/27 to schedule a pickup for 5:30am that same morning as I was catching the 6:15am Megabus to NYC. I called again at 5:00am to confirm the pickup for 5:30am and was told the cab would be there as scheduled and that they would call at 5:30 when the cab arrived. They did not call back so I called again at 5:35am only to be told that there was no cab scheduled for pickup and that they had no record of my earlier calls. I urged the dispatcher to find a way to get me a cab ASAP so I did not miss my bus or to tell me if they couldn’t so I didn’t waste any more time and could try to figure something else out. The dispatcher said he was able to find a cab and assured me it would be at my house within 10 minutes. I called back at 5:50am when the cab did not arrive in 10 minutes only to be told that they could not get in touch with the cabbie and did not know if he would show. I ultimately missed the bus as I was left with 15 minutes to drive from Petworth to H& 10th, find parking that was not metered & catch the bus.

As a result of their series of failures I had to take a later bus and forfeited the $23 nonrefundable ticket for 6:15am bus I missed. I subsequently called the Diamond Cab office several times to complain and ask that they reimburse me the $23, but they were consistently rude and refused to accept responsibility. I even spoke to someone in the office, not just the dispatchers who are usually rude and incompetent, but they too were unhelpful. Fortunately, I only lost $23 (in addition to 3hrs of my weekend) — it may have been worse if I had missed a flight.

I hope this helps someone.”

I’ve had some bad experiences trying to schedule taxi pickups as well. Can anyone recommend a reliable company for pickups? And since we’re on the subject I remember back in the day some folks (myself included) had trouble getting cabs to take us home from time to time. Do folks still face that problem today (personally I’ve had much better luck with drop offs the last couple of years)?

Photo from PoPville flickr user Wake Up The Giant

“Dear PoP,

Just wanted to relate a (humorous to me) incident that happened on Thursday morning. I was waiting outside the Enterprise Rent-a-Car center on Georgia Ave for a friend around 7:30 in the morning. A MPD officer walked up to me and asked if I was usually out at that time of the morning. I said, “no” and that I was waiting for someone. He then proceeded to give me some very unusual advice. He said that if a black person approached me, I should turn and run away. Any black person. He said I might look crazy and they might wonder what my problem was, but that I would be safe. Apparently, there had been a series of robberies along that stretch of Georgia Avenue that morning. He didn’t say if the robbers were targeting white people in particular, but I guess I looked like easy prey. By the way, the officer was black. I thanked him for the tip and then he walked away. That was the most unusual interaction I’ve ever had with a police officer. Later, when I was telling my friend about it, we both laughed. But, I’m wondering if your readers would think it was funny, sad, racist… or a little bit of everything.”

Personally, I think this is very very sad on many levels.