If this was your apartment community, what would YOU do?

We don't know the apartment community's side of the story, so let's not judge, but obviously there are some issues going on here. But let's use this as a brainstorming opportunity to find out the best response possible.

If this was your apartment community what would you do?

(If anything, let's appreciate the power of social media and the importance of reputation management.)

Social media speaks the truth. It’s a double edged sword. Rather than sue your residents I would work at problem resolution. You can’t demand a resident remove posts, but increase your ratings asking your happier residents to post their positive experiences. You can do a resident “Social Media Raffle” to increase positive posts envite your residents to enter to win a steam clean by posting you’re their resident experience on a selected social site. 10 great posts can outweigh one bad.

As for the problem, I would suggest it would be easier to remedy with the resident out of the unit. I would upgrade the resident to a superior unit for the same price or make a rental concession (or both) to save face. Later, I’d ask that the resident post the management attemps to remedy.

This looks like an issue that should have been taken care of a LOOOONG time ago. At this point, I believe it is safe to assume that the resident made attempts to contact the leasing staff and maybe even the management company's corporate office about this issue.

In the beginning stages when the issue first started developing, management should have immediately moved these residents into a new home or a sister community. But now with 5-10,000 YouTube views, this community needs to release a statement to all of its residents letting them know what they are doing to keep this from happening in the future.

I agree with Jasmine. As a Community Manager I have an obligation to provide my residents with a safe habitable home. I also have a responsibility to the owner to maintain their asset. Assuming management had the ability to correct the issue from the beginning (unless the owner would not approve the work for some reason) it should never have gone this far.
We all have had someone give us a bad review that we felt was unjust, however this does not seem to be the situation here. One video showed a literal shower of water raining down, another shows water sitting in the ceiling right next to an overhead ligt. Both of these are dangerous situations. Don't even get me started on the risk of the "M" word developing. We are only seeing one side to this story, but I have to say it's a realy bad side!!
In my community even the smallest leak is an emergency and must be addressed immediately day or night.

As an community manager I would have my team working in the apartment within minutes of the report. Traditionally if there is a need for fans for more than a day we offer the resident a half month free as a customer service gesture for the inconvenience they are going through. But I feel that providing good customer service and appropriate gestures are not always going to please everyone. Many people that go through an inconvenience will use the situation to their benefit. I cannot say that I disagree with the managements decision to involve an attorney. No matter what anyone says we all know that many disparaging ratings are over inflated. I myself have been accused of brainwashing the mail man, dealing drugs, sneaking into someones apartment to look through their trash and many ridiculous other things.

I have no secret brainwashing skills, I'm a manager I couldn't afford drugs if I even wanted them, and beyond many residents popular belief I am way to busy to go sneaking into anyone's homes.

Some people just find joy in being an attention seeker, either in real life or the virtual one they have created for themselves. I say as long as you know your management team is giving the best customer service possible, following the laws in your area as well as company policy, let the chips fall where they may.

I honestly have to say I have wished, that I could call my attorney to stop a resident. Generally they have made it their current point in life to make me miserable, because they are not getting what they want. And I am sorry to say, there just are some people like that.