Tag Archives: abuse of power

A public service announcement for those who own or rent condos at Brentwood Forest

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August 29, 2022: Another entry from the #whydidntyouwarnme desk

This summer we had historic levels of rainfall in the St. Louis metro area which have resulted in a lot of heartbreaking damage and costly repairs for many people. My husband owns a house and I own one house and one condo. We were fortunate to escape the ravages of water damage on our three properties until last week – and it wasn’t from any natural disaster.

I own a condo at 1544 High School Drive in Brentwood Forest Condominiums, of Brentwood, Missouri. It’s a long story how I came to own this, which I’ll get into later. I lived there as my full time residence from November of 2004 until August of 2018 when I got married to Tom Winkelmann.

Since our marriage, we have used the condo to store some of our extra stuff while I have used it on occasion as a crash pad and a studio for art and writing when I need some quiet time away to get some creative work done. Until recently Tom had a cat who liked to pee on everything so I avoided moving things over there like my favorite furniture, pillows, and blankets until he was gone. The cat Leo was ancient when we got married and he passed away this summer. Eventually I plan to rehab the condo and get it ready to rent out. Over the last four years I’ve encountered a number of obstacles which have made it hard to get this done (if anyone wants to know more about these obstacles I’ll get into that but it’s not critical to know for this first section). This is going to turn out to be one of those blog posts I’m going to keep adding onto as I go through an unexpected problem caused by a water leak from the condo above mine, 1542 High School Drive owned by William and Laurel Mahon of St. Charles, Missouri. My unit is on the first floor of a two-story building.

Last Monday (August 22, 2022) I entered the condo to do some cleaning and moving to get ready for rehabbing. I broke my foot last year and was grieving over the loss of my uncle and the suicide death of my brother which happened at this time last year. I haven’t really been able to function close to normally until a couple of weeks ago. When I walked by the closet where the water heater is, I stepped in water. I opened the closet door to see if it was leaking, and saw that that the inside of the closet was full of mold and when I looked up I saw the ceiling of the closet was moldy, and the ceiling near the closet spreading into the living room and the room I use as an office was also moldy. Part of the wall on the outside of the closet had mold. So did part of the kitchen ceiling and the pantry. The last time I’d been at the condo was about two weeks before that and none of that mold was there then.

My water heater was brand new as of 2017, and it seemed unlikely to me that it would have leaked and leaked into the ceiling above it even if it did. I asked my Dad to come over and diagnose the problem. Was the leak from my level or upstairs? He diagnosed the leak as being from upstairs, and later that week he met with the son of the owner of the unit above me to show him the damage and let him know that there was likely going to be a claim made on his insurance for the damage to my unit.

My Dad told me he was under the impression that the son was going to try to deny responsibility, even though he had a plumber to his unit to shut off the leak upstairs, which had apparently originated with the air conditioning unit in 1542. The leak not only caused the mold growth, but ruined my water heater, which will have to be replaced. I’m sure the upstairs owners would rather my insurance pay it than theirs. But since the leak was upstairs, their insurance should pay. I will keep a log here on this blog of what happens because I’m probably going to have to explain this several times, perhaps in court if it comes to that, and it’s easier to just have it written out and documented as it happens. I will add photos and updates as I go.

My Dad met with the plumber hired by the owners of 1542 along with the property manager of Brentwood Forest this morning, August 29, 2022. The plumber confirmed that my water heater was ruined because the box with the electronics was completely flooded. The property manager appeared to be there not to help me, the victim, but to blame the presence of mold on two aquariums that I have near the damaged area. Those aquariums have been there since 2005. They don’t leak and until last week I didn’t have mold in any of those spots. I don’t understand why the property manager wants to railroad me. Whatever the reason, I will not let myself be financially abused for damage I didn’t cause.

Instead of helping the wronged party, me, with the giant inconvenience and time suck this is going to be, the property manager was more interested in threatening to have the city condemn my unit for having mold in it. If I ever want to sell my condo, I’m not really doing myself any favors by telling anecdotes about what the condo association here is like. But I care more about warning people, and I’m sure there are other places on the web where you can read similar accounts. If you must live here, rent, don’t own. And don’t make a long commitment.

You can read some of the reviews of the Brentwood Forest Condominium Association on Yelp. I’ll likely be adding mine soon.

https://www.yelp.com/biz/brentwood-forest-condominium-association-saint-louis

So here is my warning to people who own units in Brentwood Forest. If your unit is on a lower floor, before you go out of town, or leave the condo for awhile, such as on vacation or for the winter or whatever, take pictures or video of your ceilings to show they are clear of damage. Then if you get back and find a problem, it will be harder to pin the damage on you. Even though they admit the leak started upstairs, and common sense says water doesn’t flow upwards, it appears I’m going to have to fight for fair treatment. So there is a bit of advice to help you avoid a similar situation.

Stay tuned! I hope this doesn’t get as ugly as it looks like it might. But if it does, you’ll get the news here as it happens.

I usually don’t have back pain, but I have it today just from the emotional stress, so after I shut this laptop down I’m going to go swim in the excellent Brentwood Forest pool – probably the main reason I haven’t sold this place yet.

08/30/22

I’m going to be keeping a time log each day it’s applicable of how much time I’ve spent cleaning this up and managing and mitigating the repairs.

Time spent as of 08/30/22: 33 minutes

I sent the following email to Kent Allen, the BFCA general manager:

“I just want to let you know that as I make repairs on my condo, I’m going to be keeping track off all the expenses and time involved. I’m on the bottom level, and the water originated above me. That makes me the wronged party in this case. Since I’m the one who received the leaking water into my unit, I’m going to have to remove a lot of stuff so the walls can be fixed. This is going to be a lot of time for me, and the people upstairs are going to be charged for it. I’m going to be documenting all my time and expenses.

If you try to make things harder for me by making me spend extra time and extra fees to get this work done, say by trying to get the County to condemn my unit because of damage they caused, the extra time and expenses it’s going to take to reverse that will be charged to the insurance of the people in 1542, not me. So I hope you don’t try to hurt me that way because it will just end up hurting them in the end.

I’m not eager to cost the people upstairs more than is necessary because until now I have had no problems with them. They offered to pay for a leak from the bathroom up above mine before, but since I’ve been planning to rehab that whole bathroom anyway I told them not to worry about it. If they try to say the new damage is actually old, they are going to get a very different response. There is damage in several spots that came from above. I know what came from above and what did not. I have let the minor damage go in the past, because I’ve been planning to rehab and repaint everything, and it wouldn’t matter. But this damage is a lot more serious and it does matter. So please don’t hurt them by trying to hurt me.

Thank you for your time.”

Response from Kent.

“I’m not calling anyone. “

09/04/22

My expense tally so far:

08/24/22 – 64 OZ Air Dehumidifier Q=2 21.69

08/31/22 – 42 OZ Damprid Refill 4.86

1PT Concern Neem Oil 16.31

35 PT Dehumidifier 246.26

Subtotal: 289.12

09/09/22

Time spent as of 09/09/22: 142 minutes

Photos and videos of damage visible in this online album:

Condo Project

Here are is a photo and some videos that help show the mold did not come from my aquariums as your clients claim. I’ve had these aquariums since 2005. I never had mold around them until after 08/08/22.
A photo from 2010:
https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=2262798733710&set=a.1176293771765

Some videos from 2012 showing aquariums and rooms where some of the damage is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnqekmYIYI0

Those aquariums had been there for 7 years at that point with no sign of mold. I think if you take all the evidence together you can see that the idea that the mold just happened to come from my aquariums at the time when they admit that water was coming in from upstairs is not credible and is an attempt at fraud.

09/12/22

Time spent as of 09/12/22: 180 minutes

06/29/23

Yes it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an update on the condo situation. I have been paid by my insurance company for the damage, and am now in the process of moving things out so I can renovate. This process was much delayed because of my Dad’s health issues that started in October 2022. He required my help for several months but fortunately has recovered extremely well! I’m having a heck of a time building a new routine and a new life with all the turmoil of the last couple of years but I’m slowly improving.

Brentwood Forest had a change in management in May 2023. Here are my comments about it that I wrote today on the Nextdoor platform.

“I have many reasons to be thankful that the old regime is gone. So far, the new regime has been encouraging in that they are much more transparent with communications (they actually answer my questions if I ask one via email such as when is the building and grounds committee meeting) and the person at the front desk treats people like customers instead of inmates which is reassuring! Now I won’t dread going into the office to do routine business any more.

On the down side, I wrote the management the following email today after visiting the larger pool last night. ‘Hi, do you know if the pool is open this evening and if will be until 8 pm? The pool management people appeared to shut it down early last night, apparently it was too filthy to allow people in it any more.

I was swimming at the time, I was the only one. I took a chance because I swim in natural bodies of water a lot so was only a little put off. We were wondering why no one seemed to be there then we saw the condition of the pool and figured that must by why.

The other day a duck was swimming in the pool with us. It looked last night like there were a lot of duck feces and leaves in it, and there was considerable algae.

We were wondering why two pool employees were there chatting with each other but making no attempt to clean the pool when no one was in it. I understand lifeguards are supposed to keep their eye on swimmers but when no one is in the pool can’t they skim out leaves and duck feces?

Please let me know if I should try to swim tonight! I don’t live in my unit at the moment because it’s being renovated so I have to make a special trip over there. Thank you for your help!'”

I forgot to mention that the shower they have for rinsing off after you get out didn’t work when I tried to use it last night.

This is a real bummer because swimming was one of the ways I was getting my mental and physical health back so I can get back to working on my projects, home improvement and otherwise. Yes there are other places to swim, but this was my favorite (in summer anyway).

Barriers to Government and Citizen Communication

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The first part of this post is a homework assignment for Strategic Communications Applications class in which I summarize the barriers to government and citizen communication as stated in our textbook, “Cutlip & Center’s Effective Public Relations”. The second section is my own commentary which includes a lot of my opinion, speculation, and things I’d like the opportunity to delve into further to either prove or disprove. What do you think? Is your government a help to your life, a deadweight on your progress, or a mixture of both?

In our textbook are listed many challenges to successful two-way communication between citizens and government (Broom and Sha 356-366).

1. The government is large and complex with many bureaucratic layers that are difficult and time consuming to navigate.

2. Citizens expectations of what services government should provide keep expanding.

3. There is suspicion about the ethics of the entire profession of public relations and the governments that employ them.

4. Actual incidents of government misinformation have occurred, intentional or just not thorough enough, interpreted as lies or spin, such as in the Iraq war buildup.

5. There is a lot of citizen apathy.

6. There is often hostility of legislators to the public relations profession for budget and other reasons, sometimes causing practitioners to choose other areas of expertise.

7. A lack of journalists to cover government activity thoroughly.

8. When it comes to distributing information, government and media often have different agendas.

9. The job of informing the public is too large for anyone to do well.

10. Unlike a business with a more limited scope, a government has to attempt to please everyone rather than cater to one public in particular.

Works Cited

Broom, Glen M. and Bey-Ling Sha. Effective Public Relations. Pearson, 2013.

My Further Commentary

Here are some factors I’ve considered that the book did not mention, based partly on my own opinion, perceptions and experiences. I’ll put in any links and citations I can find as I go, exploring ideas that I can bolster with other sources.

A. Some members of government agencies represent their departments poorly and abuse their power over citizens, building mistrust. This apparently is what happened to my husband and I when we started putting in a rain garden to help cope with excess storm water. I documented all that in these two blog posts of mine and my final project for this course, Strategic Communications Applications, will partly be an attempt to analyze and find motivation for these actions against us.

B. News media is no longer the watchdog over government that it once was, due to more activist news coverage (Broom and Sha 365), or was perceived to have been. There is more than one reason for this in my opinion.

    • 1. Because traditional “old media” institutions are losing revenue to other channels, they are concentrating more on their social media channels. News on social media tends to be less informative, more opinion based, less accurate, and posted by journalists who are less constrained by ethics or standards than in the past (“The Impact of…”). Much content is only created to get views and clicks in order to sell ads and does not need to have much substance or even be true in order to meet the goals of the media organizations who publish it (Johnstone).
    • 2. Investigative journalism about government takes a lot of time and money to produce, and available money and staff are more limited (Grieco). Journalists can get stories with less time and effort by just repeating statements from sources without confirming or investigating (Johnstone).
        “Journalists wanted information to be easily available, yet resented the men and women who made it available. By the mid twentieth century, journalists were dependent on PR practitioners for a large percentage of the stories appearing in newspapers. But admitting their dependence would shatter cherished ideals. Journalists were proud of their ability to uncover stories, verify details, and expose sham. Thus, they were unlikely to admit their dependence, lack of skepticism, failure to verify, and failure to expose every sham.” – Delorme and Fedler, 2003. (Broom and Sha, 226)
    • 3. The attention span of the average person in our country is going down and there is less demand for in-depth stories with enough information to truly be informed (Lords).
    • 4. Issues related to the size and function of government are politicized. The personal philosophy of journalists and companies that employ them is more likely to follow their political interests rather than the well-being of citizens than in the past (“The Impact of…”).
    • 5. The media has less and less credibility with citizens because of selective reporting, staging and manipulating events in order to have a story that they want to be able to report, un-named sources that may or may not even exist and outright fabrication (“The Impact of…”, Johnstone). There are bi-partisan examples of this to be found. I’ll post one example each from two different political sides here for examination.

      The Pew Research Center measures the public’s attitudes toward both media and government and finds that news coverage about government is evaluated and consumed very differently according to political affiliation (Jurkowitz, et al).

    • 6. Many media institutions and personalities engage in “gaslighting”, similar to what is often done to the victim in abusive domestic relationships. Media, both entertainment and what is presented as “news” is permeated with attempts to make a lot of people who have done nothing wrong and have accurate and reasonable perceptions of reality to feel ridiculed and ostracized (Battaglio). If this is continued, the “Spiral of Silence” theory posits that certain ideas disappear from public discourse over time (Baran and Davis 268). Our form of government is based on the premise that people should be free to discuss issues in order to make the most rational choice, but there are many forces trying to restrict certain information from being discussed in public (Bufkin, Farrah, Gordon, OyperG, Poulakidakos, Sherr).

      For example in 2013 I was literally holding in my hand a letter from my insurance company saying that my insurance was cancelled when an “entertainment” podcast I was listening to was ridiculing people who claimed that their insurance was cancelled, claiming we were liars trying to fool people. This was a podcast that I had a paid subscription to. I sent a scan of my rejection letter to the podcast host along with a cancellation of my subscription to the podcast. The host’s response was to call me stupid and say I was making it up. That’s an example of gaslighting and DARVO, Deny Attack Reverse Victim Offender, a tactic that abusive domestic partners and other abusers use to keep their victims under coercive control (Harsey, Zurbriggen and Freyd, 644). While the majority of media outlets were trying to deny that there were cancellations happening, a web site with Twitter account was set up for people to send pictures of their cancellation letters for publication (Fennell). Twitter shut that account down, then reinstated it later after public outrage (Fennell). Since I did see my letter on that web site and Twitter account and it was unaltered from what I sent them, I judged the things they were posting to be credible unless I was presented with information indicating otherwise. So even in a society where there is supposed to be freedom of speech and the government has limited ability to censor if the constitution is followed, corporations can take political stances and if they don’t want certain things known they can do a lot to censor information that isn’t in their interests (OyperG, Fennell, Bufkin). If we rely for information on a corporation that is in the business of news or providing a communication platform, we can’t assume without investigating that we are getting true or complete information about any issue. While media corporations sometimes have an agenda that is in opposition to a government (Broom and Sha 365), at other times they can be complicit (Woodruff). Citizens must investigate for themselves to try to determine the truth to the best of their ability, and many do not have the time or interest and so remain poorly informed (Broom and Sha 356-366, Poulakidakos 373).

TO BE CONTINUED…

Works Cited

Baran, Stanley J. and Dennis K. Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. Seventh Edition. CENGAGE Learning, 2015.

Battaglio, Stephen, “Hallmark Channel isn’t winning Emmys, but red states love it.” Los Angeles Times, 2017, https://www.latimes.com/business/hollywood/la-fi-ct-hallmark-red-state-20170914-story.html. Accessed 12 November 2019.

Broom, Glen M. and Bey-Ling Sha. Effective Public Relations. Pearson, 2013.

Bufkin, Ellie, “Twitter Users Appalled by Bias and Censorship Plan Boycott.” Townhall.com/Salem Media, 2020, https://townhall.com/tipsheet/elliebufkin/2020/06/24/conservatives-appalled-by-bias-and-censorship-plan-twitter-boycott-n2571231. Accessed 12 October 2020.

Farrah, Kristen. “Republicans fear prejudice on campus.” Webster Journal, 2019, websterjournal.com/…/republicans-fear-prejudice-on…/. Accessed 4 October 2019.

Fennell, “Twitter Suspends (Then Reinstates) Account Critical of Obamacare.” IndustryDive, 2013, www.socialmediatoday.com/content/twitter-suspends-then-reinstates-account-critical-obamacare. Accessed 12 October 2020.

Gearhart, Sherice, and Weiwu Zhang. “Same Spiral, Different Day? Testing the Spiral of Silence across Issue Types.” Communication Research, vol. 45, no. 1, Feb. 2018, pp. 34-54. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1177/0093650215616456. Accessed 2 October 2019.

Gordon, Sherri. “How to Handle Political Bullying on Facebook.” Dotdash, 2019, www.verywellmind.com/how-to-handle-political-bullying…. Accessed 4 October 2019.

Grieco, Elizabeth. “U.S. newspapers have shed half of their newsroom employees since 2008.” Pew Research Center, 2020, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/20/u-s-newsroom-employment-has-dropped-by-a-quarter-since-2008/. Accessed 11 October 2020.

Hasenfratz, Carolyn. “MSD’s Project Clear and Our Local Water Issues.” Schnarr’s Hardware Company, 2017, schnarrsblog.com/msds-project-clear-and-our-local-water-issues/. Accessed 15 October 2019.

Johnstone, Caitlin. “‘Confirmed’ Is a Meaningless Word In MSM News Reporting.” Consortiumnews, 2020, consortiumnews.com/2020/09/27/confirmed-is-a-meaningless-word-in-msm-news-reporting/. Accessed 11 October 2020.

Jurkowitz, Mark et al. “U.S. Media Polarization and the 2020 Election: A Nation Divided.” Pew Research Center, 2020, www.journalism.org/2020/01/24/u-s-media-polarization-and-the-2020-election-a-nation-divided/. Accessed 11 October 2020.

Kim, Mihee. “Facebook’s Spiral of Silence and Participation: The Role of Political Expression on Facebook and Partisan Strength in Political Participation.” CyberPsychology, Behavior & Social Networking, vol. 19, no. 12, Dec. 2016, pp. 696-702. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1089/cyber.2016.0137. Accessed 2 October 2019.

Lords, Shannon, “As Attention Spans Get Shorter, Content Gets Even Shorter – What Would Ken Burns Do?” Advertising Week, 2020, https://www.advertisingweek360.com/attention-spans-get-shorter-content-gets-shorter-ken-burns/. Accessed 10 October 2020.

Madrigal, Alexis C. “What Facebook Did to American Democracy And why it was so hard to see it coming.” The Atlantic, 2017, www.theatlantic.com/…/2017/10/what-facebook-did/542502/. Accessed 4 October 2019.

OyperG, “NBC Goes Mask Off – Reveals Twitter Censorship Methods After Devastating Hack.” Bitcoin Warrior, 2020, bitcoinwarrior.net/2020/07/nbc-goes-mask-off-reveals-twitter-censorship-methods-after-devastating-hack/. Accessed 9 October 2020.

Poulakidakos, Stamatis, et al. “Post-Truth, Propaganda and the Transformation of the Spiral of Silence.” International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics, vol. 14, no. 3, Sept. 2018, pp. 367-382. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1386/macp.14.3.367_1. Accessed 2 October 2019.

Sarah J. Harsey, Eileen L. Zurbriggen & Jennifer J. Freyd (2017) Perpetrator Responses to Victim Confrontation: DARVO and Victim Self-Blame, Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 26:6, 644-663, DOI: 10.1080/10926771.2017.1320777. Accessed 12 October 2020.

Sherr, Ian. “How Facebook censors your posts (FAQ).” CNET, 2016, www.cnet.com/news/how-zuckerberg-facebook-censors-korryn-gaines-philando-castile-dallas-police-your-posts-faq/. Accessed 9 October 2020.

Silverblatt, Art et al. Media Literacy: Keys to Interpreting Media Messages. Fourth Edition. Praeger, 2014.

Swift, Art. “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low.” Gallup, Inc. 2016, https://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx. Accessed 24 September 2019.

“Taliban Denies CBS Claim of Endorsing Trump Reelection.” Tasnim News Agency, 2020, www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/10/11/2367327/taliban-denies-cbs-claim-of-endorsing-trump-reelection. Accessed 11 October 2020.

“The Impact Of Social Media On News and Journalism.” New York Film Academy, 2014, www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/social-media-in-journalism/. Accessed 10 October 2020.

Winkelmann, Carolyn Hasenfratz. “Drainage Problems Are Bringing Tom and Me To Court.” Carolyn Hasenfratz Design, 2019, www.chasenfratz.com/wp/drainage-problems-are-bringing-tom-and-i-to-court/. Accessed 15 October 2019.

Woodruff, Betsy. “Democrat Rep: Insurance Cancellation Letters Should Have Just Said Things Are Getting Better.” National Review, 2013, www.nationalreview.com/corner/democrat-rep-insurance-cancellation-letters-should-have-just-said-things-are-getting/. Accessed 9 October 2020.

I also put some resources I’ve collected as I work on my degree on this Pinterest board:

https://www.pinterest.com/chasenfratz/media-analysis/