A woman says her apartment is overcharging for water and sewer. The complex says she is malicious.
By ED QUIOCO
Published June 4, 2003
Edwina Zaiser sat outside the courtroom Tuesday afternoon studying her notes like a student cramming minutes before an exam.
Zaiser, 30, was at court to contest charges from the Palm Harbor luxury apartment complex where she lives. The management at Grandeville at Cobb's Landing filed a lawsuit contending that Zaiser is a delinquent tenant who owes two months of rent and faces eviction.
Zaiser's side: She stopped paying rent in protest. The apartment complex, she said, overcharges its residents for water and sewer service.
She complained to the Florida Public Service Commission, which is looking into the matter.
In February, she wrote a letter to the apartment, which is on Alderman Road across from Carwise Middle School, to complain about the increase in her water and sewer bill. A month later, she got a strongly worded letter from a Tampa attorney.
"Your defamatory assertion of fraud on the part of my clients is meritless, not to mention offensive and actionable," attorney Charles V. Barrett wrote.
That didn't sit well with Zaiser.
"They thought they could cow you, "my attorney is bigger than your attorney' type of thing," Zaiser said. "If you read that letter he sent, it's pretty arrogant."
Zaiser estimates that the apartment complex improperly makes about $1,000 a month in profit in water and sewer fees collected from its tenants.
Under Florida law, apartment complexes and mobile home parks are not allowed to charge more for water and sewer than what they pay suppliers for those services.
If a complex charges more than the actual purchase price, then that complex would be subject to numerous regulations from the PSC, said agency spokesman Kevin Bloom. The commission gets about a half-dozen complaints a year about complexes charging too much.
"If we do get a complaint that someone is overcharging, we do look into it," Bloom said.
Zaiser said she first noticed what she considers to be the overcharges in December and stopped paying her $795-per-month rent in May.
Zaiser, whose job is writing research papers that students can buy off the Internet to use in their studies, has spent countless hours researching state regulations on water and sewer fees. She has written letters, started a petition, contacted state and local agencies and spoken to lawyers. Her petition has about 40 signatures.
She also has staged a miniprotest in the complex with signs that said "Don't live here."
Outside court Tuesday, Barrett declined to comment. Apartment managers also declined to comment.
In a May 28 letter to Zaiser, Barrett advised her to stop "making any further false or defamatory communications." Barrett also told Zaiser she needed to publish a written retraction and apology.
Otherwise, the complex would file a lawsuit against Zaiser for damages, Barrett wrote.
"I have been notified by my clients that you are approaching and communicating with prospective tenants and others at the apartment community concerning my clients," Barrett wrote. "All of this you are undertaking maliciously, in an attempt to cause economic harm to my clients."
After the hearing Tuesday afternoon, the apartment complex and Zaiser agreed to go into mediation. Because of the pending mediation, Zaiser declined to talk further.
The judge ruled that Zaiser had to pay the rent she owed to a court registry until the case is settled.
But before the hearing, Zaiser defended her nonpayment of rent, claiming the apartment was the first to break the lease by overcharging for water and sewer.
"They break the law, what happens to them?" Zaiser said. "They don't think anything will happen to them."
