Retiree’s complaints prove unpopular.
An 86-year-old retired social studies teacher living in a Lake County affordable-housing apartment has been told to move out — it seems as if she complained too much.
Of course, neither the company that owns the Silver Pointe at Leesburg complex nor the firm that manages it will say why they want Marie Wissler out by the end of the month.
Letters to her from the management company state that she has disrupted the “peace and quiet” of residents but don’t say how. An email from the Virginia nonprofit that owns the buildings suggested she drop her “tenacity” and a second declared that tenants feel “threatened by you.” Hilarious! Wissler is a thin woman not much over 5 feet tall who ushers at Morrison United Methodist Church on Sunday mornings. Wonder where she’s hiding that semi-automatic?
No, wait! Maybe it’s all those wild, all-night parties she has been throwing. It couldn’t possibly be that Wissler drives them nuts with complaints, could it?
Count on it. Could this be happening to other elderly renters, too? Wissler lives in an affordablehousing complex, much like the other 296 similar properties across Orange, Seminole, Lake, Osceola and Volusia counties that are available to renters with limited means. She pays $649 a month for a twobedroom apartment in a market where the median price is $918 to $1,077 a month.
The first notice that her lease would not be renewed when it expires Oct. 31 came just three weeks after she moved to Silver Pointe in November. It stemmed from a dispute with a maintenance employee who came to fix a refrigerator door she said was not straight.
“He came in with an assistant and screamed and yelled that there was nothing wrong with it,” Wissler said. “Disrespectful.”
Things went downhill after that. She said she was scolded by management for failing to keep her cell phone turned on when they were trying to reach her, and one manager called her a liar.
Wissler began registering complaints. The laundry room is dirty, and someone keeps throwing empty cigarette packs behind the washing machine. The bushes are too high under her window. The hallways are stained and dirty. Upstairs smells. Unidentified black goo dripping down an exterior door is gross. Management locks up common rooms and recreation equipment over the weekend.
“There is nothing here for these people to do on the weekend,” she said. “Zero.”
It goes on, but you, dear reader, have gotten the idea. Wissler wants an upgraded newsletter and offered to help write it. She prefers that management meet with all residents once a quarter to hear what they like and don’t like rather than in small groups as they began doing after her suggestion.
They, however, prefer that she shut up.
Even the owners of the complex, Community Housing Partners Corporation, a Virginia nonprofit, acknowledged in emails that Wissler, who taught social studies in private schools in Pennsylvania, had some valid points. But they don’t want her bugging the management company. Oh, no, no, no!
Wissler, who has no family and no place to go, said she doesn’t bother her neighbors — she has one friend down the hall but barely exchanges pleasantries with the others. But if she does talk to neighbors about the condition of the apartments and how they can be improved — even if she rallies them to protest in wheelchairs and walkers — so what? Anyone who doesn’t want to talk to her about the apartments can walk away — she’s not real speedy, after all. A check with Leesburg police shows that they never have been called to quell one of her supposed “disturbances” that so badly “threatened” her neighbors. Perhaps they were too speechless with terror to dial 911. Or not. The more likely answer is that this is a crew of owners and managers who don’t want to be bothered by tenants — elderly people who already often feel powerless and forgotten. Consider that since Wissler, who lost her husband last year, moved from Ocala to Silver Pointe, the management has offered rewards at least three times in the form of rent reductions for “clear pictures” of fellow tenants violating minor rules. What poor judgment, not to mention a diabolical way of keeping renters from forming bonds with one another. It’s a sad day when a company tries to turn senior renters into spies.
Community Housing Partners should put a stop to this immediately instead of trying to throw the blame to the management company, American Apartment Management, headquartered in Knoxville, Tenn.
Working with the public often isn’t easy. The nonprofit that owns the complex should don its big-girl panties and deal with this disgruntled, vocal renter with dignity and respect. There is no reason to toss out Wissler, and she doesn’t deserve to lose her home.