I moved into Knox Landing 15 December, 2008. I had lost everything due to severe brain trauma. I couldn't work, I'd cashed out my retirement, I gave up my condo and most of my things, but a community resource told me that this was a HUD Section 8 Project building and they were primarily for senior citizens but they included disabled people too.
I filled out an application and because I was technically homeless, I moved in sight unseen. My unit had been rented by the previous person for about 20 years and was over 100 years old when she moved out a few days earlier.
I moved in when it was dirty - the carpet, the kitchen, everything, but I had a place to call home. Less affectionately, the place was known as The Faulty Tower, because with most of the residents being handicapped and there only being 2 elevators, one or both elevators would be broken down, and when they replaced them one at a time, each elevator took more than a year to put in place.
The main office didn't want to keep track of packages so they'd hand the packages over to assigned residents to get the packages to the owners however they decided to do (George would keep them in his apartment for weeks, Meridith would walk around and knock on peoples' doors) that until we complained to the post office and they put in package lockers.
The building was run by The Knox Landers, a committee of residents that handled packages, birthday parties, and would negotiate inter-resident disputes which often went in favor of whoever was better friends with Miriam (until she died, then it was her husband George.)
Many people lived there decades and it was very poor. There was no income minimum and rent was 33% of income, so many unwell, uncared for seniors lived there unchecked and uncared for. We had ambulances a couple of times per week. Occasionally I'd come home and find the Medical Examiner's van outside when someone had died without anyone noticing.
This was my community despite the management of The Tower. I lived there 11+ years on the 12th floor facing nothing. Our 15 floor building is at the op of a hill in a suburb surrounded by single family homes. I got to know my neighbors and their families, I learned a little Russian and Chinese so I could be polite to my elder Russian and Chinese neighbors and I had a garden plot. I helped some get their US nationality, I helped many in medical emergencies (and two deaths while waiting for EMTs).
My apartment was an issue. I had carpet beetles and wheat weevils. Ants everywhere - drinking out of the faucets, crawling around in bed, they made nests in books I hadn't opened for a while, and made nests in my electronics where their slimy larva would short-circuit or jam up the mechanical bits.There was a visible gap around the window so the rain blew inside filling the wall behind the paint with bubbles of water, soaking the carpet, and in a big storm - get the furniture wet. I reported it to building management and about 3 weeks later maintenance came to caulk the voids around the window. Maintenance requests were hard to come by. They got to the management office and disappeared. When I went over my building manager's head because I had the same service ticket sat for too long, she (Dee) shut off my security key fob so I couldn't enter the building. It was there in the computer records showing her user ID changed the access after business hours. In acknowledgement that there was a "problem" Boisclair (the parent company) offered to move me to another one of their properties, pay for the movers, everything. I turned it down because the other property was 20+ miles away on the other side of the metro area. She was gone shortly after.
My apartment faced west - a big sun bomb in the summer heating up that side of the building. In 2015 I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and my neurologist told me I had to stay out of the heat. Since my place at Knox Landing would stay around 93F and my dehumidifier would pull 8-12 gallons of water from the air along with 2 air conditioners working, it wasn't healthy to be there. My doctor recommended I apply for a reasonable accommodation with Knox Landing.I applied for reasonable accommodation with the parent company and I was granted it conditionally. For 3 years I had to undergo monthly apartment inspections and would make up tasks for me to accomplish to meet the reasonable accomodation standards, paperwork was filled out by my physicians.. When I met all of the requirements, they said they changed their minds. I took issue and brought up their violating the qualifying terms and terms of the medical accommodation program set up by there own company. Again, I spoke with Boisclair's lawyers again.
I'd been inspected monthly for years as an annoyance/punishment. They knew I'm a private person and live quietly alone, so when they came to inspect, they'd come with 2 or more people who would spread out and open closets and cabinets and moved my furniture to pull up my area rugs to look for stains.
I wrote a formal complaint and copied Minnesota Housing and HUD since handling things in-house wasn't affective. My apartment was full of bugs, my apartment was healthy and was especially unhealthy for me, I was being harassed by the staff, my service tickets were going unattended and they locked me out of the building for complaining.
Minnesota Housing gave the parent company 7 days to remedy the issues. Knox Landing didn't do everything in 7 days so they tried to evict me. I contacted the Minnesota Ombudsman and it was determined to be abuse and they were fined and "forced" into accommodation.
I wasn't popular with anyone associated with the Knox Landing management. When they finally got around to replacing the carpet, black mold and bug casings were in every room. Black mold was on the walls under the paint. When the kitchen cabinets were replaced, more bugs were found and they ran to the air ducts. I threw away any food that was open and Knox asked that I keep all of my kitchen things and food in large storage bins for 2 months while they bombed the apartment over and over.
At one point while dealing with Boisclair and MN Housing, someone in the Knox Landing management office called Adult Protective Services so I would be taken away and evaluated for an inability to take care of myself so I would not be able to make a conference call. The protection officer who came is the one who told me it was the office who called. I told the officer about the problems I'd had with them harassing me and she said she'd report their behavior and put it on file so it could be added to as needed.
It was February 2020. Knox Landing had turned into a pre-pandemic time-bomb. Over the 2019-2020 winter we (Knox Landers) had 3 men and 2 women die from high fevers in their apartments. When COVID became an official thing at The Tower (13 Feb 2020) everything shut that wasn't shut down because of bed bugs was shut down. We had a few shouting matches in the lobby covering COVID conspiracy, and the office was closed, they were working from home.
I filled out an application and because I was technically homeless, I moved in sight unseen. My unit had been rented by the previous person for about 20 years and was over 100 years old when she moved out a few days earlier.
Many people lived there decades and it was very poor. There was no income minimum and rent was 33% of income, so many unwell, uncared for seniors lived there unchecked and uncared for. We had ambulances a couple of times per week. Occasionally I'd come home and find the Medical Examiner's van outside when someone had died without anyone noticing.
This was my community despite the management of The Tower. I lived there 11+ years on the 12th floor facing nothing. Our 15 floor building is at the op of a hill in a suburb surrounded by single family homes. I got to know my neighbors and their families, I learned a little Russian and Chinese so I could be polite to my elder Russian and Chinese neighbors and I had a garden plot. I helped some get their US nationality, I helped many in medical emergencies (and two deaths while waiting for EMTs).
My apartment was an issue. I had carpet beetles and wheat weevils. Ants everywhere - drinking out of the faucets, crawling around in bed, they made nests in books I hadn't opened for a while, and made nests in my electronics where their slimy larva would short-circuit or jam up the mechanical bits.
I'd been inspected monthly for years as an annoyance/punishment. They knew I'm a private person and live quietly alone, so when they came to inspect, they'd come with 2 or more people who would spread out and open closets and cabinets and moved my furniture to pull up my area rugs to look for stains.
I wrote a formal complaint and copied Minnesota Housing and HUD since handling things in-house wasn't affective. My apartment was full of bugs, my apartment was healthy and was especially unhealthy for me, I was being harassed by the staff, my service tickets were going unattended and they locked me out of the building for complaining.
