According to a report from KSL-TV, tenants at City Park Apartments, in Salt Lake City, Utah, discovered a “Facebook addendum” taped to their doors on Thursday night demanding that they “Like” the apartment complex on Facebook within five days or be found in breach of the rental agreement.
“I don’t want to be forced to be someone’s friend and be threatened to break my lease because of that,” one tenant, Jason Ring, said. “It’s outrageous as far as I’m concerned.”
The tenants who have already signed lease agreements likely won’t be required to now agree to an addendum. KSL reports:
Zachary Myers, an attorney who specializes in tenant rights for Hepworth, Murray & Associates in Bountiful, said the contract addendum may not be fair to those who don’t have or are unable to create Facebook accounts.
“The biggest issue that I have with it is that it seems to be discriminatory against elderly individuals and disabled individuals who are unable to utilize an online presence such as Facebook,” he said.
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He added that if something like an add-on appears and a tenant is not comfortable with it, the tenant should not sign it because once signed, the tenant is bound to the contract unless a court says otherwise."
The addendum also requires tenants “to not post on any public forum or page negative comments relating to the community.”
The complex’s Facebook page has since been deactivated, but a cached version of the page reveals that, following 973 public ratings, City Park Apartments averaged 1.1 stars. “Well was going to move here,” wrote one reviewer. “But hearing all this negative reviews and forcing people to Facebook is really stupid. I bet you also have crazy fees for everything.”
“Zero stars. I saw this story on internet,” wrote another. “Sperm,” replied a third.