Motorcycles get NO respect at Woodlake Village Apartments (Columbus, OH)

My motorcycle has been parked in the same place in the complex's overflow lot since the last snow flurry fell approximately a week ago. From previous experience of digging the bike out of the ice when it was located near the rear of the lot, Matt and I parked Eleanor in the spot closest to the exit of the lot where extra car traffic melted the ground faster. We thought that was a clever idea and we were in the overflow lot where, by policy, extra resident-owned vehicles could park regardless of a resident's location on the property. The complex's management decided to counteract that with a move that truly lacked common sense and insight.

Thanks to numbing temperatures plummeting below zero, roads inside of the property have remained frozen. Despite that fact, I received a phone call on Saturday from the apartment's management office requesting that I move my motorcycle from its spot immediately or risk having my bike towed. I asserted to the lady on the phone that the parking lot's condition (unplowed and icy) were unsafe conditions for me to move my vehicle. Of course, she wouldn't have any of that because "the overflow lot is not a storage facility."

Despite the fact that there were eight additional cars that were unmoved and still covered in snow from the last storm, I figured my bike was targeted because someone decided to bitch that they couldn't park twenty feet closer to their apartment than everyone else. Sadly enough, they failed to consider that my motorcycle cannot pass safely through unplowed, icy roads without risking injury to myself and damage to my machine.

Matt and I made a plan. We took advantage of their stupidity - we had been told to move our motorcycle, but were not told "how far" to move it.

We let Sunday pass without incident (the office was closed) and sprang into action on Monday with a plastic snow pusher and two hockey sticks. We were lucky that day; temperatures rose to 26°F and made the ice just soft enough to easily separate from the roadway. About half an hour later Matt had dug a channel almost fifty feet across the lot to another parking space while I used the hockey stick to clear errant blocks of snow and more of the roadway. Several residents had watched what we were doing and were probably scratching their heads as well.

Once that was done, I took off Eleanor's bike cover and Matt fired her up. She started immediately with an angry roar that could be heard throughout the property. Matt then took her off of centerstand and gingerly guided her into her new spot almost directly across from the last spot. I assisted in rotating her so she would face outward toward the road, ready to leave this dump the first chance she gets.

Easy does it...

As you can see, the move was quite pointless.

We made our disgust pretty well known and we will go out of our way to discourage people from even considering this place, especially if they own motorcycles. So, if you're an active motorcyclist who uses the motorcycle year-round as an actual vehicle and is looking for a cheap place to live, AVOID the Woodlake Village Apartments in Columbus (on Westerville Rd. just south of OH-161). Their treatment of motorcycles in the wintertime is extremely pathetic and it only encourages me to look for better housing elsewhere when we can eventually afford it.

Woodlake Village, you guys so FAIL.