Abbey Court: What's going on here?

This is an essay I wrote earlier this week and sent to one of the local papers on the chance they might be interested in it as an op-ed piece (though it's really a bit too long for that). It's outdated as of Thursday night: I'd need now to add a couple sentences explaining what the new towing ordinance does and does not mean for our situation. But I want to put the essay "out there" because it represents a more temperate, "come let us reason together" kind of reflection on the Abbey Court situation, by contrast to the "fire in the bones" you see when I'm writing in the flush of watching a tow truck pull away with a neighbor's vehicle.

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ABBEY COURT: WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

I've lived in Abbey Court for four years, ever since I moved to North Carolina to begin a doctoral program at UNC. Abbey Court has been an appealing place to live because it’s comparatively inexpensive and is located on a bus route offering very easy access to campus.

At the same time, I knew from the beginning that our apartment complex has problems. Crime’s the biggest. The murder-suicide that took place in Abbey Court two summers ago occurred in my parking lot. I heard the gunshots; I saw the bodies. I never carry my wallet when I walk the dog at night. Abbey Court is the kind of place where you not infrequently have drivers idling in the parking lot at 2:00 a.m., using their woofers to make your windows shake, or where you have to call the police to break up a drunken screaming match on another floor.

I appreciate the steps management has taken to increase residents’ safety: hiring night security, fencing off the property. When I was first informed about the new parking stickers, it struck me as a bit of a nuisance, but I could sympathize with management’s wanting to run the complex a little more tightly.

I didn’t have any problems getting my parking sticker. But when I noticed that my parking lot was nearly empty at night, because most of my neighbors were crowding into the newly designated visitor parking spaces to avoid being towed; and when I began to hear stories about my neighbors being denied parking stickers because management didn’t approve of their vehicles’ physical appearance, and then having their cars towed because they didn’t possess the parking stickers that management had refused to give them—I began to wonder: What’s going on here?

That question came to mind again when I read a statement made by Bart White, an attorney speaking for our homeowners’ association, in the July 19 News & Observer. “Anybody that disagrees with the community standard can and should live somewhere else,” White was quoted as saying.

I find that statement misleading and even a bit menacing. Let’s be clear: Management likes to advertise Abbey Court apartments as “condominiums.” But we are not an upscale covenant community. Ours is a largely working-class neighborhood. And residents have no voice in the “community standard” which management invented last month as the rationale for withholding parking stickers. This is not a case of “You knew the rules when you moved in.” The rules have been changed. In effect, new requirements have been created for living in Abbey Court; and current residents, long-time residents, who can’t meet those requirements are being penalized by having their cars towed—even as management continues to take their rent checks and hold them to their leases.

“Anybody that disagrees with the community standard can and should live somewhere else.” What’s going on in that statement? Should I understand Mr. White’s comment to mean that the new parking policy is an attempt by management to pressure “undesirable” residents to move out of Abbey Court? Where does Mr. White think that my low-income neighbors “can and should” live instead? Durham, perhaps? Or is the intent of his comment more along the lines of “Go back to the country you came from”?

On Tuesday, Ken Lucas, the man who owns most of the apartments in Abbey Court and is the chief architect of our new “community standard,” issued a press release announcing that the restrictions on vehicle appearance would be relaxed. People who had been denied parking stickers, he said, should reapply. “That seems like a good sign,” I thought.

But less than 24 hours later, at 5:00 a.m., Wednesday morning, I was awakened by the sound of a tow truck in my parking lot, hauling away yet another car—hauling it away fast, before a crowd could gather. The car belonged to one of my upstairs neighbors. She’s lived in Abbey Court for five years with her boyfriend and their young children. Management wouldn’t give her a sticker for her car because her name’s not on the lease. They told her she could apply to be accepted as a resident—for a fee—but there’s no guarantee they’ll accept her, and she’s dubious they would because her credit’s bad, which is why she didn’t put her name on the rental application in the first place. Now, with the loss of her car, this working-class family’s already complicated life is that much more complicated. It will cost them $180 minimum to recover the car. Oh, and it’s the end of the month, so they also owe a rent check to the same company that had their car towed.

I ask myself: What’s going on here?