MariaG96
New Member
- Jurisdiction
- Montana
Not too long ago I had rented out my first apartment. I can honestly say I was very excited about this. After signing paperwork with a housing authority, and once I qualified, I moved in. I was planning on taking some English classes but I couldn't since their company didn't allow any type of student so I decided just to keep working. The secretary who had done my paperwork was very nice and treated me well. After over a month of living in this unit, maintenance had an inspection to check out fire alarms in each unit. I was working that morning so wasn't there to see what all they were doing. I had worked a double shift that day, I arrived to my apartment almost at midnight. I went to bed when suddenly around 2 am my fire alarm out of nowhere started to beep. I had no clue how to restart it since each time I would press "restart" it wouldn't shut off. So I kept smacking it and pressing restart. After couple minutes it shut off and I went back to sleep. I knew maintenance would come check it out next morning, I honestly was very tired and with pjs, so I went to try and sleep in my bathroom tub. Once maintenance arrived(2 guys) they did knock on my door and later on went in, they supervised my apartment to make sure it was ok. I kinda felt awkward when they had started to open my closets but I had thought it was just me until when one of the guys started laughing and making jokes about Native Americans. He said," I can bet she's a fat ass Native". He later went on making jokes about how lazy Native Americans around this reservation were. I started to get very mad but I didn't get out of the bathroom yet because I wanted to know what all they would say. The other guy went into my bathroom because they wanted to know what age I was. He needed to see my stuff in my bathroom to try and guess what age I was. I felt very uncomfortable since my personal items are in my bathroom (especially my underwear). I thought it was unacceptable and before they would go even further I decided to speak up, I was still hiding behind the curtain of my shower. I yelled at them to go out. I scared them since they didn't expect me to be in my unit. I guess the guys knew they had done something wrong since when they came back, they were with the housing secretary and the racist maintenance hadn't came back this time. For my surprise, my fire alarm needed to be restarted at a hall this housing authority had, which every since I had moved in, they never told me this. They also never gave me a key to my mail box because somehow they couldn't "find a key". They had promised to fix it and after a month they still couldn't do it lol. I was gonna talk to the secretary about what had happened that morning but I was very tired and needed to sleep a bit more before work. Couple days past by and I felt it wasn't that big deal but inside me I knew it was not proper what maintenance had done. I felt very offended, I am not an enrolled member but I'm a first descendent of The Salish and Kootnei tribe and the apartment is located in the reservation of this tribe.By the next week I had went to talk to housing authority, I had told the secretary all that happened and she said she would let her boss know. I went in the next day after that asking for a lease. I guess they didn't take me seriously until my stepmom contacted me somebody who would help me out. Afterward they had my lease, once I moved out. I went to hand my keys, for my surprise, I had to personally hand out my keys to maintenance. I even had to stand by his side while he personally did an inspection. I was trying to be calm but I needed to tell him it wasn't correct the racist comments they had made about Native Americans, I also had to tell him it wasn't correct to be digging into my stuff and trying to guess what age I was. He smiled and told me," I'm sorry miss, but I don't remember any of that. I didn't hear or see anything that day".
I expected a sorry and I wanted him to accept his mistake but he didn't have the guts to admit he was wrong. A week later this housing authority had gaven me back my security deposit. After over a month I wasn't thinking about moving it any further until a lot of my family told me I should speak up. This housing authority needs to fire their maintenance and I believe I deserve a well apology, I feel very offended, it was racist and I even think it was a sexual assault. Nobody ever deserves to go thru this situation! I hope somebody can give me an answer of what I can do.
I expected a sorry and I wanted him to accept his mistake but he didn't have the guts to admit he was wrong. A week later this housing authority had gaven me back my security deposit. After over a month I wasn't thinking about moving it any further until a lot of my family told me I should speak up. This housing authority needs to fire their maintenance and I believe I deserve a well apology, I feel very offended, it was racist and I even think it was a sexual assault. Nobody ever deserves to go thru this situation! I hope somebody can give me an answer of what I can do.
