Kylie Grunsfeld, Opinions and Humor Editor
One morning I awoke to my roommate banging violently on my bedroom door. After a few moments, I made out the words “a huge roach just crawled into your room.” This came after weeks of sending work orders into our property managers, Pollard and Bagby.
By the time they finally sent a third-party company in to get rid of the bugs, we had seen close to a dozen baby cockroaches and multiple adults. They crawled in through exposed drains, attracted by a leaky sink in the bathroom, which we also sent in requests to fix. Additionally, an attic door was left open right above the entrance to our unit, a perfect place for cockroaches to breed — none of which was our fault. It was the fault of a company who failed (or did not care) to keep their building in good condition.
I do not write any of this because I think it is an unusual experience to have when living in the Fan. I write because it is all too common, and there does not seem to be any plans to change this.
Living in the Fan is an immense privilege. The homes are historic and beautiful, and there are many parks, shops and cafes all within walking distance. However, when I was a prospective Fan resident, I was warned by current residents that despite the perception of Fan-living as luxurious, living conditions are often uncomfortable at best and unmanageable at worst.
Part of this can be owed to the reality of living in an old building. Much of it, though, can be attributed to the way individual companies choose to maintain their properties.
In February 2025, former Opinions and Humor Editor Natalie McEwan wrote a CT article lamenting very similar issues to the ones I have experienced. The thing is, renters are still being taken advantage of. Year after year, people — specifically young college students who have little to no experience with renting — are mistreated and misled, and this is just something we are supposed to accept as a natural part of life in Richmond.
Pollard and Bagby were more than eager to extract $650 from me when I brought a cat into the apartment. The residential property manager answered me the same day I reached out with an inquiry. In comparison, a maintenance request submitted on Oct. 4 about a leak in the ceiling of a bedroom has still not been attended to.
Why is this the norm? Why have we been conditioned to feel lucky just to get a timely response, like our property managers are our avoidant situationships?
My fellow tenants made a building-wide groupchat, mainly so we could share grievances and coordinate who would email Pollard and Bagby if and when an issue with the building arose. We figure there is strength in numbers. Maybe a single tenant would be unlikely to get a response, but it would be harder to ignore several tenants complaining about the same thing.
If there is a solution to the ongoing problem of property management companies taking advantage of renters, I feel strongly that this is it: Do not accept poor living conditions as just ‘part of the deal.’ We deserve to live in clean, safe apartments, whether rent is $600 or $6000.
Pester your management company if need be. Gather together tenants with similar issues and have everyone message collectively. Know your tenant rights and make sure your landlord is aware that you know.
Do not let companies like Pollard and Bagby knowingly harm your mental and physical health without fighting back. In a time when rent is increasing by the year according to Zillow, we must at least strive to ensure who we are renting from is held accountable for the quality of their management.
A lackluster apartment might be considered a ‘rite of passage’ for college students, but there is a difference between an apartment that is lackluster and one that is intolerable.