video evidence of ADA violation by apartment property management company

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(Last edited/updated Oct 07, 2024)

Contra proferentem (Latin: "against [the] offeror"), also known as "interpretation against the draftsman", is a doctrine of contractual interpretation providing that, where a promise, agreement or term is ambiguous, the preferred meaning should be the one that works against the interests of the party who provided the wording.

The content of this website is in regards to a property management company that wouldn't repair an accessibility opener on an interior main door yet would insist that it not be propped open, but the equivalent one on leasing office end of building would be propped open ... and its opener worked, it was crazy. The issue was finally resolved because there was another minor incident (with a truck hitting the building in garage area & broke piping for fire sprinklers) & the fire dept might've mentioned something - or just coincidence (going ahead to comply with the state) but it was finally fixed. I moved regardless since there was nothing stopping the management from doing the same thing again.

Note: The reason for the "Contra proferentem" definition at top of this page is because there was a clause in their original lease (& it may be standard) but the signer agrees to not pursue legal action against the property management company even if they're negligent and deliberately so ... (even if they're deliberately negligent on upkeep, repairs, maintenance, etc.), but logically there could be some reason why a company would be purposefully negligent on a temporary basis and shouldn't have to be bombarded with lawsuits if it's not all that serious. The lease also uses the word reasonable so their "logical" reason shouldn't be something like to deliberately discriminate since that is a crime & could get them in trouble with the federal gov't & impact their profits. My point is that if a property management company operates in a way to where they disregard preventable financial loss because they're too big of a corporation to be concerned with it (like was apparent in this case) then they're no longer operating as a "property management company", they're a Ponzi Scheme!

I notified the state to reinspect my unit for my gov't assistance requirements & it failed & the management made it clear that they weren't in any hurry to correct the issue so I had to move.

I added the copies of the original email that I sent to the state's HUD case manager as well as his response. The email message is dated about two months prior to when there was finally an actual official inspection completed. The inspector actually showed up & did a physical inspection on Feburary 9 but didn't submit the results or something ... when I called the case manager the following month he said that the only record that he had of an inspection was at my lease renewal, the prior October 2021. ... (I'm not supposed to be able to actually keep documentation.) I had already explained to the man that he is sympathizing with the property management company. (He's the one who repeated what one of the managers said that "sometimes you have to push the button twice".)

So what's it to me when I am not physically disabled? (Actually I do have a physical disability but I don't need to use any mobility assistive devices.) I was following an elderly Black man into the bldg one evening & he had a walker & was trying to open the door. (I have a reconstructed ankle from an old major sprain injury, so I have to be careful when handling heavy objects like a commercial glass door.) I had assumed the door opener was repaired because it used to be propped open. Anyway, that evening I tried to press the button to use the opener for the elderly gentleman with the walker & myself & it didn't work. I realized it had been like that for months already. It is degrading. It is a low-income designated newer apt bldg but no, AND because it's low-income the corporation doing the management doesn't worry about compliance with federal law.

Maybe I need to come straight out & explain something (that I've probably explained elsewhere), but there is a Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution issue in situations such as this because laws are supposed to be applied equally. Everybody is supposed to receive equal protection of law. Property managers have their legal ways to handle non-paying tenants & the Americans with Disabilities Act is law too so the management should comply with it, but here the company is not in compliance with federal law... obviously.

Any similar issue at one of the corporation's other more affluent properties would be taken care of, even if it meant hiring overnight security until the mechanism was repaired and functioning correctly. It is United States federal law that the opener functions as it should. If it doesn't function correctly & nobody cares (except the human beings who attempt to use the thing) then it is confusing & frightening.

It is also known in social science (this is rational & obvious, but I could provide sources for this claim) that the low-income demographic consists primarily of people of color & other marginalized (or vulnerable) people, and it is also known that they're people who can be taken advantage of and historically have been exploited. The Section 8 housing assistance program requirements for landlords is intended to counteract the cultural tendency to sympathize with (defend) the landlords since it's assumed by general consensus that the recipients of housing assistance are undeserving of such help from gov't. The overall tension that results in situations like this can become physically threatening to me as a single, middle-aged Caucasian man with mental impairment type of disability. That is difficult for me to disclose here because of stigma but I have had violent crimes committed against me ... no, I didn't deserve the violence.

There was the other aspect with what I knew about the company that's managing the property. It's a multi-million dollar corporation that also managed affluent residential properties. The company wouldn't avoid their maintenance responsibilities for so long on a handicap accessibility door opener in a more affluent bldg so the company was discriminating. I understand it that way because I was specifically taught to understand it that way by very highly educated people. I handled the issue the best I could in accordance with what I was taught & I was doing what I could to get the company to comply with ADA. (The company employees spend a lot of time giving each other awards, by what their LinkedIn posts indicate.) I got my apt re-inspected by the state & it failed because of the opener not working but even the people with the state gave me the run-around, is the point!

In order to transfer my voucher to a new apt I needed to get the management to sign a "Mutual Recession of the Lease Agreement" which is an official state (division of housing) form. The management agreed to sign it but their regional manager had the stipulation that I sign a non-disclosure agreement that was to be attached to the state form. The management was committing fraud by refusing to fix the door opener and attaching the non-disclosure agreement to the state form modified the document. That is a kind of forgery. It was a felony since it was meant to cover their fraud. I am a disabled person under federal law and a veteran but none of that matters to anybody. Whatever. I still have U.S. Constitutional Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of law & free speech. The old cultural argument that "only the gov't can violate citizens' rights" is addressed here on page 8 of this aticle from Stanford Law. (I link directly to article on the Stanford Law website from the pdf viewer below.)

I updated this presentation to include the "Demand for Compliance or Possession" notice that was posted on my door in Feburary of 2022 after I had informed the management of the existence of this website. I assumed at the time that the managers would take the situation seriously and abide by their ethics and repair the door opener (or address the fact that they weren't and provide some legitimate reasoning) but they did nothing. I was intimidated by them so I took this website offline until after I was able to move. It was demeaning too since during the whole time that the door opener was broken the maintenance would do other routine "business as usual" rounds ... including changing the flappers on the toilet tanks and that took a crew of three people entering my apartment to accomplish. They had also went around and changed all of the apartments' locks when Mission Rock Residential took over and all the while the management was violating ADA law.