[First, a note: Yelp has NEVER asked me to take a review of DT down. NEVER. Michaels Management agents, however, have claimed that's the case. That is false. I have written 9 reviews and have chosen to take them down so I don't overwhelm the feed. Also, to account for change. Sadly, this review takes us right back to the beginning. Nothing has changed at Diamond Terrace Apartments in over a year, except it's gotten worse in important ways.]
The second and third-hand smoke is back. In and near the private dining room. In the elevator by the office. It was gone for a few months. The scent was so faint it almost wasn't there. It was clean. Now, it reeks. The second-hand smoke seeps into adjacent apartments, where elders and disabled residents have no choice but to breathe it. They would not consent if given a choice. They don't have an option, however, when tenants favored by regional management and catered to by the new onsite manager (it's his job and his home at stake) are allowed to flagrantly violate no cigarette smoking bans in the buildings. Those favored tenants are back to blowing the cigarette smoke onto carpets and walls and fabrics of furniture. Take a walk in that private dining room now: that stink is what residents favored by regional management force everyone else to breathe.
As bad as polluting the air in confined spaces is, the Fire Marshal told me and another resident when I spoke with her that this place could go up like matches because of how it is built. We've already seen that the local Fire Department and the City of Clayton have overlooked, since 2024, life-safety fire prevention violations on this building, some ignored so long they convert to misdemeanors against Mary Keshishyan, the responsible party listed on the ignored violations. It sometimes feels like they hope it'll burn down. With a financial cliff coming up in 2028 for the owners (Diamond Terrace Investors, LP and the City, if they don't get their monthly check), it sometimes feels like that's where this is headed.
Last year in April, a nearly 4-hour fire alarm occurred with NO responsible party onsite. In a densely populated senior and disabled apartment complex. I was there. It was brutal, that blaring siren for almost four hours and no manager to stop it. No one. However serious that is, that the Fire Dept Captain failed to follow protocol and neglected to require the responsible party who finally showed up to sign a chain of custody document indicating who the property was handed over to after the alarm was finally stopped - that feels worse. Like they really don't care about us here at all. I mean, who cares about a bunch of seniors and disabled folks in affordable housing, anyway, right?
Diamond Terrace now feels less safe than it did a year ago. The management proxies who retaliated against me relentlessly for more than a year for speaking up about the rampant cigarette smoking indoors have grown emboldened. I was assaulted by one and the video of the incident prompted the Officer I reported it to at the Clayton PD to call it an assault. I did not use that term. However, after management (Mary Keshishian) intervened with the Clayton PD on behalf of this proxy, the Officer's supervisor recategorized an obvious assault into a non-assault. Violence cannot be tolerated here, but the top of The Michaels Organzation in California gave the green light for that violence.
That incident emboldened another regional management proxy who came to my workplace to talk to my manager and make egregiously false claims about me. The manager and some customers have had hostile interactions with this man previous to my employment and supported me. But this is a mentally unstable man who harasses other residents regularly, and regional management continues to allow (indeed: enable) this man to harass and bully without consequence. They say his family won't help, but Michaels Management is responsible for the safety of the residents.
Urinating in the yard outside a woman's window - another incident caused by this man - must have consequences, but regional management will not do the work to make sure this is a safe property for everyone, especially if the proxies are harassing whisteblowers, or anyone who asks questions regional management does not want to answer. They simply ignore the danger and lawyer up.
Sadly, until Regional Vice President / Designated Officer Mary Keshishian and Regional Property Manager Elizabeth Sawtell are held to account for the culture they impose from the top down, Diamond Terrace will get worse. The insurers need to know where the root of the problem can be found.
(Every claim I make in this review has documentation to support it from Public Records Act Requests and work by the CCC District Attorney's office, who insisted I say: they are NOT conducting an investigation into the City of Clayton, the Fire Department, or The Michaels Organization. Reach out here and I am happy to provide evidence.) read more