Review for Collegiate Hall Apartments

Dear Fox 6,
I am a junior in college at UAB in Birmingham, Alabama. My friend and I moved into Collegiate Heights in Birmingham to begin school during this summer of 2007. When we viewed the apartments, they showed us a model apartment that, of course, looked wonderful and told us how is was a great college community for students to go to during school. We looked at many other places, but this one had the best deal for what they showed us. We signed the lease and everything was good, until the day we came to move in.
The day we came to move in they had said they put us in an apartment with a great guy who was well kept and didn t drink, smoke, or anything like that because they say they match you according to your profile. Now I first want you to imagine, it s your first time moving out and you re excited about living on your own in your new apartment! The pictures I sent were of the apartment they tried to put us in the first day. The manager admitted to not checking the room before we came and we found out, as the pictures show, the guy smoked, drank, and the place in shambles and this was even after he was told we were coming. We were also paying for a furnished apartment and it wasn t in the least bit. I was completely shocked when he showed up in the room after we arrived with a cigar in his hand the smelled up the entire room! We were already disgusted with scuff marks everywhere, no vacuumed floors, mold in the freezer, the food particles coving the inside of the microwave, a swarm of flies coming out of the trash when opened, laundry everywhere and none of the fire alarms worked, posing a major safe hazard not only to that room, but rooms all around. The pictures show everything else I may have missed. After he walked into the room, through his shirt in the middle of the floor, kicked his shoes off in the middle of the doorway, and walked to his room without looking at us or saying a word, I had enough!
I called the managers and the first thing they asked us to do was to suffer through it during the summer because they didn t have any rooms. Then I said we would just see them in court and all of the sudden they had an entire room that was about to open up in one week. So after moving once, they asked us to move again and stay with one of their workers for that week until it was ready. The room I stayed in didn t even have a door for the first 4 days. The week was up and we asked them if our apartment was ready and they told us it wasn t, but that they had gotten lucky because some girls parents said they didn t want the apartment they were put in and therefore they were moved, leaving it vacant, so they asked if we would give them one day to straighten it. Once again, we let them get away with another of their managerial mistakes. The next day we moved our stuff for the 3rd time into the apartment and still had to do plenty of cleaning, but it was not as bad as the first one so we were going to try and make it work. We had everything completed, but the neighbors in the area are obnoxiously loud to the point of it being ridiculous and they will keep us up sometimes until 2am as though it were 12 in the afternoon.
One late afternoon, we hear a knock on our door and before we could answer, one of their maintenance guys walks right in without our permission. I would first like to state the AL state laws requires them to give a 3 day notice before they can enter our room. He told us that a guy s room was broken into and had to stay at out place without any questions. We had no idea who it was. The guy started moving his stuff into out apartment that evening and without out permission, let a guy we did not want help him move things in. I have been on several mission trips, so I collect priceless things from around the world. That guy took a long look at everything. The next day we made sure he was to move out and we said we would help him, because in our minds, we didn t feel safe at all and had stayed up a majority of the night. While moving him out, we overheard the guy he had let in telling a whole group of 8 or more guys everything we had in our apartment. This terrified us and we told the managers there immediately how we felt and that we wanted to leave. They said there was nothing they could do and apologized as if it was going to make everything better. They have treated us as though we are little kids who don t know anything about life. I m a junior in college majoring in business finance, I m not stupid. They offered to let us move again and I asked them if that was how they settled all their problems, but moving wouldn t resolve anything! The fact of the matter is all those people were told everything we had and we wanted security.
The last thing I have to say is since that moment we have told them constantly that we just want out so we can move somewhere peaceful and nice were people actually acted like adults and not thugs out to prove a point. They have a sublease form that says if 3 other people sign the lease in our place, we can leave after paying $350. They also told us they could find the people and I know, because one of the ladies told us, that they have a file of people who wanted to move in and yet, it s been almost 3 weeks now and nothing has been done and we just want to leave, that s it. We ve tried everything which is why I m writing this to you at fox for help.

**If anyone reads this and understands what's going on in this terrible place, contact my email at shwrsngr04@graffiti.net I want to get more people to talk with Fox 6 and just know someone who is friends with a person who works for Fox and they are in the process of tyring to see if Fox will help us expose how horrible these apartment conditions really are, plus I have plenty of pictures as you can see and that is what they tried to put me in the very first day I came! So any documentation would be great!