Boardwalk Apartments Ends Overnight Hookups, Late Night Studying With Guests
Beyond UCF, Housing — By Cliff Jett on February 10, 2010 at 4:11 pmTHURSDAY 12:45 PM UPDATE:
KnightNews.com got a response from Boardwalk’s Kimberly Bittle just before noon apologizing for not responding to our original requests. She said she had overlooked our e-mail requesting information before posting the original story, because it was buried within many other emails that came in about the situation. Bittle also said she used the yahoo.com account, because her work server is acting up.
KnightNews.com and Boardwalk are trying to schedule a time to have a sit down interview about the situation, as there is clearly another side of this story we’d like to hear — that’s why we waited almost a day before posting it originally. Until we can find a time that works for both of us, we offered Boardwalk the chance to write an unedited statement we will post on KnightNews.com to say whatever they’d like to about the situation. We also sent a list of questions we felt our visitors would want addressed, and will let you know when we get them answered. We will post the updates to this story as soon as we can get them online.
KnightNews.com also has obtained a follow-up e-mail sent from Brianne to its residents. You can read that by clicking here.
If you have a tip you’d like KnightNews.com to investigate, please email it to: news@knightnews.com .
PREVIOUS STORY AND UPDATES:
KnightNews.com received an email tip from a frustrated resident living at the Boardwalk apartment complex just off campus. The KnightNews.com tipster was angry about the enforcement of a lease policy, which was apparently not enforced until February 8th.
UPDATE: CLICK TO READ HOW BOARDWALK IS THREATENING APPARENT LEGAL ACTION OVER THIS STORY
The policy, which the tipster said was buried very deep within the lease signed before the start of last year’s winter semester, states that no guests may stay overnight at the Boardwalk apartment complex, according to tipsters.
An email to residents from the property manager, obtained by KnightNews.com, interpreted the lease to mean no guests past 2 a.m., no exceptions. That means no boyfriends can spend the night with their girlfriend, no girlfriends can spend the night with their boyfriend and you can’t even have a friend over to study for a big exam the next day past 2 a.m.
KnightNews.com emailed the listed manager for a comment on the policy, but so far she has refused to respond. After this story was published, we got a response threatening their lawyers would be called due to inaccurate information, however, management refused to say what information they claimed was inaccurate.
Another tipster wrote to KnightNews.com on Thursday saying the lease itself doesn’t specify a time guests need to be out, but just says no overnight guests are allowed. However, the e-mail from management said security will remove guests after 2 a.m., once someone reports them to security.
This raises the question: Can Boardwalk legally make your guests leave if your guest stays until 3 a.m., if the information from tipsters is accurate, saying the lease doesn’t specify an exact time overnight guests have to be out?
If you have a tip for KnightNews, email us at news@knightnews.com, or click the link at the top of the page. We would love someone to e-mail us a copy of the lease.
Below is a copy of the email we received. What do you think? Will you consider living there in the future? Comment below.
__________
Dear Residents,
Attached are some flyers about upcoming events. Tomorrow, Feb 9th, maintenance will be entering the apartments to change all the air filters. We want to keep your a/c in good working order. We appreciate your understanding with this. We are unable to make appointments to enter but shouldn’t be in the apartment more than 2 minutes.
As of today Feb 8th, Boardwalk will be enforcing our lease policy that states no residents are to have overnight guests at any time. We feel that your guest should be leaving no later than 2am. This is a reasonable time to have your fun and your friends need to go back to their own places. They are not to crash on the couch or spend the night in your room at any time. If you feel your roommate is having guests over, please contact the courtesy officer at 407-870-7002 after 2am and all guests will be escorted out of the property and the resident could be served legal notice of violation. We hate to have to take these measures, however each of you signed a lease agreement that you understand our policies and as a shared common space, you should all be courteous to your roommates. We want all our residents to enjoy their time here at Boardwalk and having guests overnight with showering and such can cause your electric bill to be higher, there is a tendency to disturb your roommates with noise while they are sleeping, and most importantly it is a violation of our lease agreement. We appreciate your cooperation in this matter.
Thank you for your time,
Brianne Stabler
407-384-8626
407-384-8094 Fax
brianne@gsiam.com
See the follow up e-mail sent out by clicking NEXT PAGE below.
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15 Comments
I lived in Boardwalk for two years and thought it was the most ridiculous ripoff of money I have wasted. 560 a month (furnished, but with flimsy cheap furniture), badly kept records (2 times getting an eviction notice when i had paid on the first), and slow response to work orders. I felt like I was still in a dorm and not an adult whatsoever. This whole “no overnight guests” thing just intensifies the bad taste that place gives me. I have a long distance relationship, and if my boyfriend had to get a hotel room when he flew in, I would be raising some serious hell. I’m a 22 year old ADULT. If it were over a 5 day period or so, I totally agree with the rule. You shouldn’t have someone else living with you not on the lease.
I hope you all who live in boardwalk realize that they are making about 2200 a month per 4 a small bedroom apartment and controlling you like mice. You can rent a 4 bedroom HOUSE for 1600 or 1700 easily. Just sayin.
its pretty unbelievable people are agreeing with this. its completely ridiculous…it has to be the apartment complex employees logging on and posting those comments…its going to be funny to see these apartments bankrupt next year…or have to drop there rent hundreds of dollars a month.
For those ppl who said it’s in ur lease stop complaining. Or that the boardwalk residents should just be adults, My rebuttal is that if u going to hold the lease up and pick apart line by line then u have to do so for both sides of the table. U cant expect the residents to abide by the lease when Boardwalk doesn’t. Why is the front gate always broken. Why dont the phones not work. I remember when the hot tub was broken for an extended period of time. Boardwalk wants to enforce the rules that are convenient to them, but they are not holding up their end of the lease when it comes to spending money to fix stuff.
they say “no crashing on the couch, etc” but what about someone who is drunk? Are they supposed to just leave and get killed in a car wreck? i bet boardwalk would tell them they shouldn’t have gone out and had fun. this is absolutely absurd!
How will they even know if extra people are there?!?!? I mean, they may be able to check the guest parking, but it’s not like they are going to knock on people’s doors every night and check the rooms. As long as your roommates don’t say anything, the office would never know.
The rule is in the lease. You signed the lease. You follow the rule. End of conversation.
YOU’RE IN COLLEGE. READ WHAT YOU SIGN!
I just want to say, I actually like Boardwalk a lot. But this rule is ridiculous. I’ve lived here for the past year and a half and just renewed with two of my roommates for the next year. I have no trouble parking whatsoever and my room is clean and nice enough. But if my significant other comes to visit, they’re sleeping over. Period. I pay for my room and I’ll do what I want in it. They’ve tried to say that we’ll only get in trouble if someone reports us, but that doesn’t take it far enough. They need to drop this stupid rule altogether.
I don’t like these types of useless regulations on adults. They need to make sure this stuff is highlighted.
On the other hand, there does need to be regulations that say that guest can’t be over for more than a specific number of days without a roommate’s approval. I knew somebody who’s boyfriend lived with them for an entire year at Pegasus landings. He wasn’t just staying over he was living with them. There were 5 people in a 4/4 and the other girls were mad but were afraid to say something to keep the peace.
Stupid regulations that call for curfews on adults are absurd though.
Wow! this is ridiculous! We are adults if we want to have people overnight we can. Sure sometimes roommates are annoying sometimes, but its life. This is a normal apartment not a dorm. This rule should go. It is reasons like this I left student housing. RUN NOW WHILE YOU STILL CAN!
this is the most absurd rule that i have ever heard of!!! i was also looking to live at the boardwalk but now will look somewhere else! I have heard from more than a hand full of residents that this place has horrible parking, and overall sucks!!! i will not move here!
Great article! Maybe this will push Boardwalk to change this absurd policy.
Every lease agreement seems to have some clauses that are absurd but typically not enforced. When I signed at Northgate I read the whole contract through and found some gems (such as not playing your phonograph too loud, and a max of 10 people in an apartment, including residents, at once), though none as bad as this.
Wow, really? That is just stupid. That place will lose many people who were thinking about leasing there.
I was deciding between there and another place when I heard about this. Decision made.