I came to Forest Park to attend professional school in the area. I found Jacknow Realty on trulia.com and worked with them to find something that fit the needs of my 3 other female roommates and I. As soon as the lease was signed, I felt a steep decline in the amount of respect Patrick (son of Jerry) showed to my roommates and I. He held a very condescending attitude when he spoke to us, and continued to work with us as a surrogate for the actual owner of the townhome we rented. We wrote checks to him, and paid on time every month.
Attitude is something I could have simply brushed off, but the true problem we had was responsiveness to our problems. Upon moving into the unit an outlet in my room was nonfunctional, so Patrick had his brother come look at the problem, and fixed it in a timely manner. I realized after his brother had left that he had created a new problem and the light in my closet no longer worked. Despite repeated texts, this problem was never fixed even after I moved out. When spring arrived and the snow started to melt, on of my roommates noticed a leak in her ceiling that became pretty substantial overtime. Workers repeatedly came out to fix the issue; we were told it was fixed; only to find the next time it rained the problem resumed. Finally about 2 months later, the true cause was realized, and the problem corrected.
Around this time we had an exam, and Patrick and the owner decided the house was "too messy" and there was permanent damage being done. Instead of mentioning the problem to us, so that we could address it, they chose to raise our rent $550/mo. $300 for "market value" and $250 for a cleaning company twice per month. We had a week to decide, and they wouldn't negotiate or extend the deadline despite the fact that one of my roommates was conducting research out of town for the summer and the other was going home that week for her sister's wedding. We were very surprised, since this was the first time they had even discussed an issue with us. After attempts at negotiating, they rescinded the offer. Luckily we found a similar living situation, cheaper, and just down the road with nicer landlords.
When we were cleaning the house ourselves to get the deposit back (which Jacknow takes an absurd 2 months rent), they told us we had to clean behind the stove, refrigerator and dryer. While cleaning I found crayons and toys from the previous tenet's children, because those items were not cleaned for us. In resolution, we received the full deposit back, because there was no permanent damage done, and the town house is not rented due to absurd asking price.
In dealing with Jacknow Realty, be prepared to be talked down to as though you couldn't possibly understand the intricacies of the real estate market, and taken advantage of. read more