This has easily been the worst experience I have had as a consumer. I had the misfortune of trusting this company and rented a house for 1 year @1300 per month. The security deposit was also 1300. These guys are extremely unprofessional when it comes to promptness of repairs, communication or general courtesy. For the entire year I couldn’t get them to fix a whole bunch of issues that I pointed out to them during move-in time. It took them 6 months to fix a bathroom door that was hanging on 1 door hinge.
Also when I finally moved out of there, I had to literally call them up every week for 3 months to get my security deposit back. They finally send me a check for 300 dollars. When I called them back about the remaining 1000 dollars, I was told that a couple of my rent checks from 8-9 months ago were 2 days late and they assessed a late charge. This was an absolute bulls**t claim and I know that they are just trying to rip me off. These guys require the rent to be mailed as a cashier’s check to their P.O box. They claim the rent was late and I have proof that the check was created at my local bank well before the due date. I also saw charges for cleaning the fireplace, bathtub etc. I haven’t used the fireplace even once during my stay at the property. The house was professionally cleaned and was handed back to them in way better condition than they had handed me the property. When I first moved into the house, the living room had tons of dead bugs on the carpet and what looked like mice/rat droppings. Also some genius had filled 2 large trashcans with kitchen trash and left it as a house warming present when we moved in. When I called the leasing agents and complained that the trash cans were full of maggots, I was told that I can either take it out to the front yard and clean them out or purchase new trash cans from the city. That conversation on the first day alone left a bad after taste. Little did I know that these guys were going to rip me a new one.
(As an aside, I remember talking to my wife while we were moving out. She was trying to reason with me that just because the leasing company people gave us the house in a bad condition, does not mean that we should leave in a bad condition. She probably was thinking this way because we just bought our first place and we felt very emotional about owning our own place. )
Anyways, when I saw their explanation for holding back $1000.00, it was clear to me that these guys are not making errors or overlooking anything. They are intentionally trying to rip me off. At this point I am inclined to take these guys to small claims court or use an arbitrator to settle. I still haven’t found the time to explore these options, but I will be doing that soon. Please for heaven’s sake run away from this company and their leases. If anybody needs more information, I am very open to sharing my experience. Please email me @ sriramnara at yahoo dot com.