Woman Says Apartment Lied, Now Wants to Charge a Fee for Free Bike Parking

A Washington, D.C. resident claims that her building is now charging residents for bike parking, despite advertising that it was free when she signed her lease.

Alyssa Franke (@alyssafrankly) posted a viral TikTok on the issue where she breaks down a series of apartment dramas that she and fellow tenants have been dealing with.

In the clip, she speaks directly into the camera while seated on what looks like a park bench outdoors. She says that prior to the bike parking fallout, tensions among residents were already running high after the unit began changing the way tenants were being charged for water usage.

"So instead of being charged for the amount of water that you use, you're being charged a percentage of the water that the entire building uses," she explained. Which means that folks who were using less water than other dwellers were shelling out for utility consumption they didn't partake in.

She adds that it's not just residential water that's been tacked onto the bill, either. But rather, all of the building's usage, which includes management initiatives like maintaining lawns and cleaning the structure.

Alyssa wasn't a fan of this payment structure. "I thought that my rent money was supposed to be going toward like that general community upkeep. But no, apparently now that's like all profit and we have to get charged of the like general water that the apartment building uses for landscaping and all of that."

She adds that this figure wasn't "a total number that they split up evenly between all of the residents," either. According to her, some folks were getting water bill amounts that were comparable to what they paid prior to the change.

On the other hand, there were folks getting slapped with fees that culminated in "hundreds of dollars more" than they were paying for previously.

Furthermore, there were residents in another building who claimed to have been looped into emails from the water company that admitted folks were being overcharged.

However, Alyssa states that another issue has been grinding residents' gears, and it has to do with bike storage.

She said that tenants were up in arms after receiving an email from management stating storage units and bike parking in the garage were paid amenities. So if folks wanted to park their bikes in these designated areas, they would have to fork over $50 per month for a bicycle spot.

But Alyssa says that bike parking has "never been a paid amenity" in her building. "I have all of my welcome documents not once is it listed as a paid amenity. Not once when I was getting my lease with this building was I told it was a paid amenity. In fact when I moved in the leasing agent helpfully walked me down to show me where the bike storage room was."

During this walkthrough, Alyssa stated, again, she wasn't informed this would cost tenants extra money to keep their bicycles there.

But the drama didn't stop there. "Another interesting thing is that a few months ago the bike room door suddenly stopped working."

The area, which residents can access with a fob, was completely locked and folks couldn't gain access to their bikes. Upon questioning why their fobs weren't working, Alyssa stated that tenants had to go to the front desk to grab a key so they could unlock the door and retrieve their bikes.

However, she doesn't believe that the fob access issues were some random error. Rather, she appears to intimate that building management intentionally revoked fob access, which was working without issue for residents beforehand. Only to then turn around and demand $50 a month from tenants to get in and out of the bike storage room.

She expressed that the timing of such an error seemed convenient, especially because weeks after this happened, management sent a mass email about the fee.

Alyssa went on to reiterate that it was her, and every other current resident's understanding upon signing their leases that the bike storage was a free amenity.

Following this, she asked other apartment dwellers in the D.C. area if they'd had similar experiences in their own complexes.

"So if you're living in an apartment community in D.C., I'd love to hear if you've had any more of these friendly reminders that amenities that you were told were free this entire time are actually paid amenities you need to start being charged monthly for."

At the end of her clip, she called the practice an "interesting new nickel-diming-tactic" being employed by the building's management group.

Commenters seemed just as outraged as Alyssa was. One user on the app bluntly stated: "They are illegally changing your leases."

Which was a sentiment echoed by someone else who wrote: "Sounds like they are violating the lease agreements, might want to contact the news and a lawyer. Seems ridiculous."

Another person claimed that this flies in the face of D.C. apartment law and that residential buildings must provide free bike parking.

However, according to this document detailing D.C. Residential Building cycling requirements, there doesn't seem to be any mention of the parking being free of charge. It does state that domiciles containing eight or more units must have storage space for bicycles, however.