Moving Day

For the past year and 9 months or so I lived in Westwood Park Apartments in Norman, on Robinson between Berry and 24th. If you live in Norman, I'm sure you know exactly where I'm talking about. They are nice apartments, fairly clean, laundry facility, swimming pool, and gym. Even though this is a college town, these apartments are pretty quiet, not a lot of parties or anything (except mine hehehe).

I did however have several "flooding" issues with them. First off, only a few months after I moved in a very heavy torrential thunderstorm hit one night (as they often do). Many places throughout Norman flooded as did my new bedroom. I woke up that morning, stepped out of bed to a sopping floor, of which my toes went "squish" in the carpet. I currently have my aunt's bedroom set, very nice, solid wood, and with some help was able to lift up the dresser and nightstand on 2x4's so nothing would get damaged. I slept in the living room for over a week while they drained and cleaned the carpet. They did take care of the issue quickly, but their solution to the flooding was to dig a giant trench from my apartment to the drain, quite unsightly but it worked nevertheless. There had to be mold in the walls or under the carpet because I was sick for like a month after this.

The second flooding offense is leaky windows and door. Every time it would rain heavily (as it often does here) my window would leak into my bedroom (right by my bed) and "drip", "drip", "drip" onto the windowsill, waking me up in the middle of the night. I always had to get a towel to put there to collect the water and dampen the sound. I would soon realize after placing my towel on the window that the door was also dripping and making a noise. It would drip just outside the door on the metal piece that runs along the bottom of the door frame. Quite annoying, yet they did come caulk the window and the door frame (twice).

Lastly, I am one of those "lucky" tenants with a washer and dryer in my apartment. I found out that my washer would leak all the water out when draining from the wash or rinse cycle. This would soak the laundry closet which backs up to the wall my computer was on. I realized this one night when hooking up an external hard drive, went to plug the thing in and the carpet was wet... under the power strip. If that's not a hazard I'd like to know what is. They did eventually fix this, but I found out there had to be mold on the carpet since it leaked every time I did a load, and the closet always smelled musty.

The worst offense though happened while I was moving out. I was tired, I had been packing all week, I had about 7 people helping me move everything out so we could get it done in one day. I was moving some blankets from a corner in the bedroom when what to my surprise, they're covered in mold. GROSS! Apparently the upstairs bathroom had been leaking down my wall (for quite some time) and I didn't realize it. I had a pile of blankets and garbage bags filled with blankets in the corner. There was also a huge spot of mold on the carpet and on the wall. I was actually sick the next day, not surprisingly.

I painted my apartment when I moved in, which meant I was supposed to paint it back upon moving out. I went to talk to management about the mold, and other problems I had experienced. They weren't willing to negotiate with me on the painting, or reimburse me for the blankets I lost. I decided I wouldn't paint it back or clean for that matter, since my deposit would be lost.

Overall it wouldn't have been a bad place to live in, had all the flooding and mold issues not occurred. I would not recommend it though. The new place is great though, well so far anyway. It's a 3 bedroom duplex with a 2 car garage and 2 bathrooms! It is just south of highway 9 by I-35.

I just wanted to warn anyone who is looking at Westwood Park Apartments, and share my experience.
V