We rented a property from AIPM. While at first it was great, the service declined over the two and half years we stayed there. Upon move in, it was clear that the property was not well taken care of. Nearly half the light bulbs were not working and there was some major dry wall repair done in the hall way (not well done, by the way). There were coaxial cables in every room, run along base boards and over door frames. Of course, we just assumed it to be no big deal.
We paid a large deposit for our dogs, but upon moving in, discovered the fence to be falling apart. My dogs managed to break through the wooden fence 6 times in less than 2 weeks. Each time, I would have to try and find them (once being gone for 4 days), and put up new dog ears to replace the broken ones. I decided to purchase some 2x4's and reinforced the fence. Over time, the fence began to sag, so we reported it. The order sat unserviced in their online portal until we moved out.
A few months later, we had a clog in the shower. I tried to use drain cleaner and snake it but couldn't find anything. We called and had their plumber come out. He couldn't find anything either, stating that the lime scale must have been the cause. Per our rental agreement, we had to pay for that service. I was not prepared for that, as no other landlord I have ever rented from made us pay. Tenant beware.
At some point, we had entered into escrow into a new home. We entered our 30 day notice faithfully. However, escrow fell out and we asked to rescind our notice. We were charged $300 to do this, to cover their cost of advertising.
Several months later, we entered into escrow again. I called to confirm the process of a 30 day notice, but was told that if we turned in another 30 day notice, they would not let us rescind again; We would have to move. Fair enough. We waited until escrow closed to turn in our notice, effectively costing an extra month's rent.
About a week before turning in keys, we scheduled a walk through of the property. We made sure that both my wife and I were present. No one showed up for 45 minutes, so we called to find out why. The office didn't seem to know there was an inspection at all and had to call their staff about it. The owner of Advanced, Shawn (spelling unknown), magically showed up 5 minutes later. Because we had not finished moving out, Shawn stated that he could not perform the walk through but would look around to see what was going on. He walked around for about ten minutes taking pictures.
Once finished, I asked Shawn directly what we needed to do to get our deposit back. His exact answer: "Everything." I asked for further clarification and he rattled off a few things. Fully expecting some paperwork to help define what "everything" meant, he said he doesn't give paperwork when he cannot do a full inspection. I thought that very odd.
That interaction with Shawn did not sit well with me, and based on the continued poor interactions my wife and I were having with the office, I called to discuss the matter with Melissa, who I believe to be the office manager. I asked if we had offended the office because their behavior left us with the impression we had wronged them by moving out. Melissa denied any offense, but when asked why we didn't get any sort of pre-move out paperwork, she immediately transferred me over to Shawn.
Shawn and I spoke on the phone for approximately 25 minutes, during which time Shawn told me that he has never given out inspection paperwork. I questioned the legality of that, to which he responded somewhat aggressively that he's never had a problem in 20 years. It became clear that the intent was not to return a full deposit to us. This led me to search out some of the online reviews for AIPM, and to my shock, found reviews with similar incidents by over 30 people.
Persuant to Civil Code 1950.5 (f)(2), they did not give us an itemized statement and allow us to make any repairs. Because we did not know what needed to be fixed, they docked almost half our deposit. DO NOT RENT FROM AIPM. read more