New lawsuit alleges price-fixing at Seattle-area apartment buildings

I'm sitting here listening to workers dismantle, I mean upgrade, my apartment complex. I've lived here for 20+ years. A property management company bought the place, gave us 60 day notices (I have until the end of this month to find a place) so they could refurbish the apartments and then rent them back out. Being the kind, sympathetic fuckheads they are, they offered us original tenants a great deal in having first dibs on the refurbished places. Rent went from $1700 to $3200. So nice of them.

The interesting thing for me was, the week after the sale went through I called up the company to find out where I was supposed to send my rent. The lady had a little trouble finding my info, and then excused herself by saying,"Sorry, we bought 5 apartment complexes this week and the system hasn't caught up yet."

This isn't Washington, but I've had similar stories from friends living in different states. It's a fucked up situation in this country. Yet another issue that politicians just can't seem to do anything about.

Yep. I lost my apartment because of this. Went from $1400 to $2300. The day I moved out, other neighbors were packing their cars/uhauls, too.

They went through this whole rebranding where they were trying to be "luxury apartments" which is hilarious because they never did anything to actually make the place nicer. They just changed the name, put up fancier signs, and raised the rent. The pool and workout room remained inaccessible after 3+ years, there were still piles of garbage in the parking lot, neighbors still complained about mold and roaches, the kitchen cabinets still looked like they were painted by a drunk 12 year old, they still hadn't fixed my mailbox that was allegedly blown up by a kid with a firework after many months, and the maintenance crew still ignored maintenance requests and just marked them as complete in the system.

Fuck that place, and fuck heartless, profit-obsessed landlords.