Before considering Heathers I'd encourage you to look at other properties instead…read more
We intended to ease mom into assisted living at Heathers Manor by starting with an apt. at Heathers Estates, but we have lost our confidence that this is the best place for mom.
To be fair, it may be that Heathers simply follows policies from parent company, Transforming Age. They arent exactly paragons of customer service either. All calls go to voice mail and I have never received a response to email inquiries. When submitting questions to Lang Nelson when considering their properties, I received an answer within a day.
We are now moving to a Lang Nelson property, which also has more advanced care options when that time comes.
Ironically, they used to own Heathers and it was hard to get an opening. Now, even in a tight housing market, they have more than 20 unrented apts. It's a downward spiral; less rental income means a tighter budget. A tighter budget means skimping on amenities and deferring maintenence, which will likely cause even more people to leave. Everyone here talks about how much it's gone downhill since TA bought it. Still, we had made good friends there, and when a 2 br opened up in December, we requested a transfer. We saw the apt twice, it didnt need major renovations and we assumed a February move in date. After no response or follow up we asked the director. Her response:
On Monday, February 14, 2022, 03:29:54 PM CST, Kristel Lastine @heathersmanor.orgwrote:
Are you aware of what the process is for apartment transfer?
There is nowhere that states if a resident wants to transfer we must approve.
So it is up to our discretion in the first place.
My response:
I was just going by the lease agreement. It basically says it's at tenant request and the fee is $1000. Other tenants confirmed that experience. Why was that process not followed?
On Thursday, February 17, 2022, 01:33:02 PM CST, Kristel Lastine @heathersmanor.org wrote:
I am aware of the lease wording.
Yes, this was updated and changed per corporate for various reasons.
The things we liked best about Heathers was the courtyard access and their indoor pool and spa. But the spa has only one working jet and is perpetually out of order. It's currently been out of order for over a month, and they may comsider it too costly to repair or replace. The pool is usually not properly heated and it's now closed evenings and weekends, the most popular times.
There's a waiting list to get a garage. Some of them were destroyed by a fire and weren't rebuilt. Some of them flood during heavy rains or snow melts.
They also transferred the director to another property without replacing her; stretching the Manor director to manage both properties. The Manor gets most of her time and attention. She schedules one monthly meeting to address Estate tenants' concerns but mire than once rescheduled because she had more important things to do.
Concerns or questions directed to her from Estates residents are treated as an annoying intrusion rather than an opportunity to provide any customer service. My questions and concerns have either been ignored or rudely dismissed.
We didn't consider Lang Nelson the first time, assuming that a church owned non-profit would provide the most compassionate care, but we found that a for-profit business who knows that full occupancy maximizes their revenue and focuses on retaining their tenants provides a much better experience.
Update: after following Heathers move out instructions, including cleaning the closet door tracks with cloth covered knife or screwdriver, we arrived to early move in at Cedarwood to professional cleaning crew preparing our new apt. We were concerned about move out deadline of noon on 31st. Mind you, with 20 vacant apartments,
On Thursday, February 24, 2022, 09:03:02 AM CST, Kristel Lastine
On Thursday, February 24, 2022, 09:03:02 AM CST, Kristel Lastine @heathersmanor.orgwrote:
Hi Deb -
Per the lease if you extend to April 2 this would technically leave you responsible to pay through the whole month.
Cedarwood said come early, no problem That pretty much embodies their different approaches to service.
Ironically, if the director didn't dismiss our request to move to a two bedroom apt, we wouldnt have discovered the Lang Nelson experience. It's the single best thing we got from our Heather's experience.