DO NOT RENT FROM THIS COMPANY AT ALL!!! TRUE SLUM LORD!! When the father use to run the company, he maintained everything up to par. This last time was my 3rd time first time under his son Hunter! He and his team DO NOT CARE!! The day I moved in, the winter 2016, I was asked by their office manager, Toni, if I could wait a week because they had not done any walk through or cleaning from the tenants prior. I said "NO" because my lease was up that day at my old place. Early that summer I kept seeing mice and let them know, but all they did was put up traps and did not bring in a pest control crew to get rid of the situation. The neighbors who lived above (before the neighbors who live there now, said they got really big, almost rat size before they did anything for them in their apartment. All the tenants in our house (3 apartments) would complain about things and they never took care if the problems. My kitchen ceiling was leaking from the apartment above and they fixed it once. The last 3 times I asked they didn't do jack crap for an entire year, and they still didn't do anything by the time I moved out!! They had about 1/2 of the windows nailed down, which is a violation and I'm so glad now that Kansas City has laws against landlords!!! Toni's boyfriend, who is a head maintenance guy, only wanted to argue and not do anything. They let go of Mike who was an older gentleman who was the only one who actually did anything and cared about the tenants. They said they were coming in every 1-3 months for pest control, that never happened, because you would have thought they would say something to the owner, Hunter, about the ceiling. They only used their own people never anyone outside because they don't want to spend money. Yes, One weekend I was sick and asked not to come in, other times I let them come in, so another lie from his comments!! And when is being sick a crime? And they will lie and say your deposit is in the mail. This was my final straw, when you give me a shitty place to begin with, show no care in taking care of it and then try not to return the deposit. I was talking to Toni on Thursday, she said she mailed it Friday, well today is Monday, NO RETURN DEPOSIT CHECK!! I let Toni know and told her to let Hunter I was going to post if I didn't get it by 5pm today. Last person who said they were sending me something in the mail in the same city, I got it the next day. Well here is my post and my promise I was going to do what I said I was going to do! Now I will be reporting them to the city which I posted pictures and whom people can reach out to in Kansas City because no one should treat tenants this way!! Funny that the owner is SO LYING in his comments. I have a witness to what the place looked like because she helped me move and is a real estate agent. I also told him I gave back the place the same way I got it. I did not move in the day after someone moved out, I waited a month before moving out of my place as you have to give 30 days notice. Lies in your stories Hunter. Still going to the city and as you can see, many reviews that you suck. Let your dad take it over again, he does a better job!! 6/16/20 Funny how in the comment from,Hunter Knaack owner, said that his office manager mailed out a check on Friday 6/12/20 and we all live in KC and I still have yet to receive it? So yeah, I did call her and you both liars because I've received nothing. People need to know what kind of business you run! read more

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So my lease ending was coming up with my current leasing company and I was looking in the midtown area. Came across a snazzy apartment with beautiful brick walls through a 3rd party leasing company and found out that the leasing company was Knaack. I saw the negative reviews but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt. I paid my deposits for me and a cat I was supposed to adopt and myself. I hadn't seen the apartment since i viewed it the first time. Didn't raise any red flags. I pointed a tree growing out on the patio, a torn patio screen and a missing bathroom vanity mirror to the leasing agent at the time and it was dirty but i figured it was still getting it ready. When I went to pick up the keys, i was stoked and excited. The location was great and it was an upgrade from my current place. I went inside and noticed a mouse catching box outside the door. Figured it was ground floor apartment, whatever. I walked inside and first thing I noticed the tree was still there...patio screen still torn. Okay...I start walking around the apartment and noticing things. Like the missing vanity mirror, dirty bathtub, dirty stove, dead flies on the counters and window sills. Mouse traps in the HVAC closet and under the kitchen sink etc etc. I could literally go on. My first thought is like maybe the COVID made it weird, but I was on Facebook live while i was checking out the apartment and my friends and family urged me to top trying to clean it and to go get my deposits back. A filthy apartment, especially during a Pandemic is unacceptable. I go to the office and Toni, who is amazing by the way, is there. She's super nice but from what i have heard, vey spread thin in the office. But I go in and begin talking to her about how the apartment is filthy and how it would be unacceptable for me and my mother, who is older will be moving in with me because of the COVID, to live in. A man who i am assuming is the owner of the properties steps in and begins talking to me about the property trying to figure out what was going on. I explain to him about the dirty and unready apartment and show him the pictures that I took of the property. He essentially tells me that he won't be able to refund my money without talking to the 3rd party because it is a lot of money to lose because the 3rd party makes him pay a fee. Whatever. The apartment is filthy and I need my money back, I won't move my things into an apartment that isn't ready. Toni tells me about the maintenance man who tried to come to the apartment who offered to "clean" His idea of cleaning was a joke because he came to the door with Lysol wipes informing me that he did a walkthrough earlier that day and noticed that there was some stuff in the tub and asked me if i wanted him to wipe it up really quick......no thanks. You'll need a lot lore than that to get that clean. The owner tried to offer to get a cleaning company which I declined because at this point, the fact that you thought this was okay is honestly appalling. All in all I did get my money back after my mom and sister called up there and berated him but the fact that he told me that as a tenant it's my responsibility when viewing the apartment to take notice of things that aren't satisfactory, which is true to a *degree*, I didn't think that having to ask the landlord to hire a cleaning company was something I had to do. It is usually expected. Would not recommend, I am so glad that I decided not to rent here. Who knows what could've happened down the line. read more

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If you like high prices, a crumbling apartment, and dishonest agents, then Knaack might be right for you. I was a tenant for 11months. When we moved in the apartment was not clean, the back porch was decaying, and there was no heat (in October) The back porch was "fixed" with particle board and left unpainted. The back stairs are also particle board. We at first paid with checks, until the checks were cashed a weak after they were delivered. Now with the Resident Portal there is a 40$ 'convenience' fee attached. Being close to the plaza isn't worth it. read more

Before renting from Knaack, I had heard HORROR STORIES from kids I know, warning me not to do it. But hey, I'm not good at being told what to do. So I rented! First off, the day my two roomates and I signed the lease, (fuck now I can't remember his name) But the larger guy, the dad Knaack, was like, "Oh! 3 girls moving in?? Alrrriiiiiiiiight! More ladies at the pool!" SLEAZE! All in all, it turned out not to be so bad. There were a few issues that were usually resolved. My shower caved in at one point though, because the wall was rotted out behind it... and that shower still isn't fixed seven months later, after I moved out. They fixed it, but never finished it... so there is still exposed innards and it will just happen again because they have ignorant workers. ALSO!!! There workers decided it'd be cool to try to sweep drywall dust off of my carpet, and I was begging them not to (I'm really OCD and I seriously and literally vacuum everyday) and the guy just continuously kept sweeping, while I am trying to convince him that he's only pushing the dust further in. terrible experience! I also had a close friend that rented from Knaack, and her experience was so bad that she had to break the lease. Her apartment "RAINED" on many occasions, because of broken pipes in the old nasty building. NO bueno. basically, rent from some one else unless you can't. read more

I've been renting with Knaack for about 6 to 7 years now. It kind-of surprises me when I hear stories from kids from the near by Art Institute not liking the places. Overall my experience has been pretty good. When it comes to matanience problems around the apartment, things get fixed in about a weeks time. That doesn't always happen, but making a second phone call and making sure a work order is placed usually gets the job done. I've noticed major cosmetic fixes usually gets put off until between tenants. One of the benefits about going with Knaack is that you can switch to another apartment or complex under the same lease basically. I've had a friend or two move from one apartment to another within the company's apartments. Knaack seems to be a family business. Like a small- big dynamic. They're professional. They do background checks on all the tenants. I don't worry so much about what neighbors I'll have. The landlord tends to leave you alone. I only get bothered when maintenance people come around to spray for bugs or check on the smoke alarms. I really can't complain and I love where I live. read more

The good: - location: everything is in walking distance or a short drive - price is average or below average of the area - staff is friendly and works with you the bad: - location: when I lived at Knaack I was in my mid-20's; Knaack has a lot of Art kids and they love to party- can be loud - crime: car was stolen (it was locked in the parking lot) and apartment broken into; GET RENTERS INSURANCE!!! - we had a window borken from said break-in and it took 3 months to fix, I probably told staff about the window 5x; it takes time for things to get fixed. Overall: A good place if you're 18-22 or so and don't mind a little noise, partying, and are patient with Knaack staff. If you're a young professional, married, or have kids I would reccomend looking elsewhere. I miss the location (I moved to Lees Summit... don't judge me), however I do not miss the crime and noise. read more

I ended up not renting from them, as I had found a place I liked better. So why am I giving a review? Well... I DID look at an apartment. Not knowing whether I would find something else, I put a deposit on the one I was shown. Follow me on the math. I looked at it on a Monday. The girl in the office told me if I put down a deposit, I had three days to change my mind. I came back on Tuesday with a check. Fast forward to Friday. I had found a place I liked better. I came to the office to reclaim my deposit. She tried to tell me I couldn't get it back since it was more than three days. Ummm, no dumbass. I gave you the deposit on Tuesday. This is Friday. That's three days. Couldn't get her to understand the math. And you're running the office? Lucky for me, her boss was there, and he knew I wasn't going to take this sitting down. He shredded the check, although I did still have to pay the application fee (understandable). I'm not saying don't rent from them. What I AM saying is, I would be careful about giving a deposit to hold an apartment here. It worked out ok for me, but if the boss hadn't been there I can only imagine getting mine back would've turned into a huge hassle. How about having someone who can count run the office? Or is this done deliberately to try and screw people? You be the judge. read more

I've been renting with Knaack for about 5 months now and have a very great experience. I was looking for a new place to live extremely last minute and Knaack was my last resort. I've heard nothing but bad reviews from people about them so I was a bit apprehensive but I knew I had no other choice. From the very beginning, Toni the property manager, made me feel so comfortable and taken care of. She has without a doubt made sure that all of my needs have been met while renting through them. The upkeep on apartments seems to be great and problems do get fixed when presented. I'm so glad I gave them a chance. I really feel as though the people writing bad reviews may have been bad tenants to begin with, so skip reading those. I'll admit they're slightly difficult to get ahold of sometimes, but they do return your phone calls. 10/10 read more

I've rented from the Knaack family since August 1992. The first few years were difficult, as I was a student at UMKC. Management and staff have worked diligently to respond to my requests, concerns and maintenance needs. Even during the pandemic, the lines of communication remained open, whether by phone, email or text. I feel like my maintenance needs were attended to as quickly as possible considering all that's going on. With so much going on in the community and the world, I'm thankful to have a landlord who seems genuinely concerned about the safety and well-being of tenants. read more

I came to Kansas City in August of 2009 seeking to find an apartment close to KCAI (my first transfer semester was that August). Knaack's Wiltshire building was the third apartment I had looked at. I will say that my first impression of the place was that the building was trashy and run down. The apartments inside have the potential to be really awesome, if only they were fixed-up and remodeled. I was skeptical as to which apartment to choose, but the Wiltshire building on Warwick was so close to KCAI, it seemed like a better investment in the long-run at the time. I will say that Hunter was quite the man by bringing down the monthly price of rent of the apartment if I agreed to sign a lease right then. So I did. It took no time at all to realize the building was infested with cockroaches. This was strange to me at the time because, having come from small town Missouri, I was used to landlords taking full care of bug problems and spraying monthly to prevent bug infestation. This was not the case at Knaack. They did spray for bugs once every few months unless I called asking if they would spray. At one point my bathroom was completely flooded from someone taking a bath in the apartment above mine. It took maintenance two weeks before they finally showed to look at the pipes in the ceiling. Around January 2010, my roomate and I started getting bitten by something. I noticed a few times as I was in my recliner in the living room these strange bugs that I had never seen before. They would bite me and the bites would fester into welps and sores on my arms. It got so bad that while sleeping we were getting bitten and my arms and legs were completely covered in sores. One day out of nowhere in March an exterminator showed up and educated us that we were getting bitten by bedbugs. The man lifted up our futon mattress and they were crawling everywhere and had made nests on the sides of the mattress. The exterminator didn't say at the time that a mattress cover would be needed. They only continued to show up over the next few months to spray treat around our bedroom and living room area. The bedbugs were nesting and biting us the whole time. We eventually took all of our furniture from the living room and our bed and threw it out in the dumpster. We then slept on the floor, yet we were still getting bitten. I researched bedbugs on my own, and to my horror, bedbugs cannot be treated with a spray. Only extreme temperatures of hot or cold can kill them. And they hide in everything from books, pictures on the wall, and everything fabric. My roomate and I moved out immediately after our lease was up. Most of my personal belongings I had to throw away-- all of my furniture. I spent around 60 dollars numerous times at the laundry mat washing all our linens and clothes to kill the bugs. I also had to take rubbing alcohol and wipe down all of books and other belongings to insure no bugs were hiding in them. When we moved to our next apartment we left countless items in our van for a few months to insure we did not bring any critters with us. In the end, living in the Wiltshire building did not save me money. It actually cost me thousands of dollars by costing me my furniture and other belongings. I of course was not reimbursed for this. Hunter, at the time, seemed perturbed that we did not rent a different room in another of Knaack's properties. Truth be told, my first experience with them was good enough to be my last. Hunter did give us back our complete deposit without even inspecting the apartment, which was cool in it's own way considering we needed the 500 dollars to buy a new mattress set. A friend of mine who lived in another Knaack owned house on the corner of 40th and Warwick experienced similar shitty maintenance, and her windows were even completely nailed shut. What would have happened if there was a fire? (She lived in the Attic apartment). Perhaps most property owners near KCAI and UMKC get away with being poor landlords because there will always be students who need some place to live and don't know any better, and don't have a lot of choices. Such a thing is quite unfortunate. read more

I want to start off by saying that the staff was friendly which I did like. I also liked the fact that the pricing was good for being a broke college student. The location was really great because I was a short distance from school and pretty much everything. Now, there are some major problems that I had with them. First of all after living there a few months communication started to dwindle. Getting ahold of anyone was like pulling teeth. The first apartment that I was in had a boiler problem that seemed to take weeks to get fixed which meant that I was stuck in a one bed room with no heat in the dead of winter. The kicker was I couldn't have a space heater because it would pop the breaker. The second apartment that I had with them was a lot nicer but I did have a problem with getting anything fixed. There was a leak in the ceiling above my tub and I had let management know on multiple occasions, but nothing ever happened so I just gave up. The worst thing that happened is that when I moved out because I was moving states getting an answer on if and when I would get my deposits back was agonizing. Every text I sent was either ignored or was answered, but in that non-answer way. It took a solid month after I had moved out to finally get an answer and my deposits back. I don't want to say don't live there because if you are a college student things could be worse, but really think about it and look around first. read more

I stayed at a knaack properties apartment. It initially started out to be a good place to stay. As time went on I realized that the apartment complex I live in was completely filthy in the basement. I've never seen anybody clean that basement. The ground of the apartment was rarely clean. They would be trash all over the apartment grounds. It would take quite a while for the maintenance crew to come and fix something in a person's apartment. I will no longer recommend or refer anyone to a knaack properties. read more

RUN SERIOUSLY - I'm the parent of a Knaack renter. I warned them about a review I saw before they rented. Started 1st. with a large wet putty patch above the shower. Realize that was a cover up of an existing problem. Tons of COCKROACHES until the tenants above moved out. If they had really been spraying properly, there shouldn't have been a problem. A continuous RAT nightmare hearing them behind the wall in the kitchen and under the tub. They set traps which never worked. Then the ceiling caved in when I was visiting. They THUMBTACKED a piece of opaque shower curtain and it would fill up with water again and again-- NEVER REPAIRED!!!! I have texts, photos, and documentation of the many requests to fix these problems. The building exterior is below poorly maintained, the front security door rotted off and took weeks for them to replace. read more

This management company is horrible. They never fix any problems and are never available via phone. The property I rented has had several issues and have not been addressed. I know a least a dozen of my neighbors and NONE of them are happy with Knaack! I gave it one star only because you have to give some kind of rating! read more

Run away. After reading the reviews, we decided to go ahead and rent Knaack anyways. The prices seemed fair, especially for the properties listed. But there is no price low enough for what this company pulled. Knaack broke our lease within days of signing it- apparently the property we toured, signed for and paid a deposit on was not actually available. We were moved to another much smaller property for one month (moving expense not paid for, rent not reduced, of course. We still paid full price for the property we were in for one month.) We would not have done so, except we were given three days' notice of the situation prior to our move-in date. Then we moved into the original property. There was a dead mouse in the middle of the floor. The previous owner was a smoker, and the apartment walls had been painted, but the ceilings were stained brown. Every time we turned on the AC, smoke was visible. Even now, tobacco stains leach out of the walls and drip down in streaks every time we use the shower. Debris from the previous owner and Knaack's renovations stayed piled on the porch for weeks, despite calls to the company. The last straw was when the front door lock and handle broke. For a month our building has been quite literally open to the public; the door swings open every time there is a breeze. What is more, someone pulled the building's mailbox cover off, so everyone's mail is unsecured. As someone who gets a paycheck in the mail, this is the most disturbing. The box is hanging off the wall, and anyone could walk in, grab my mail and leave without a trace. Forget contacting this property if you have any problems. The property manager (an 18-year-old with another job and a full time student, whose bosses seem to take advantage of her inexperience) rarely returns calls. Forget contacting their maintenance department- they take days to respond. In fact, forget renting from this property at all. Trust me. The location is NOT WORTH IT. read more

Knaack properties has been very good to us. We bought a condo from him some years ago and everything worked out great. Management of the complex by him has been very good. We do not have any complaints. If you don't believe me as far as complaints and/or reviews go to the better business bureau website for the Kansas City 64111 area and you can see that Knaack Properties has a BBB rating of A+ (at the time of my review 8/18/2010). read more

My daughter put in her app on Fri 26th of Aug 2016. I was the co signor. She called in the 1st of Sept 2016 Talk ed to Toni. Toni said they still process ing her app. Said she call in Fri 2nd. No call no email. My daughter call and e-mail sat, tue, no response. My daughter called Wed 7th of Sep. Toni then tells her she is approved, my daughter said she doesn't want it. And she wants her deposit back. Toni said no cause of a three day rule. Being that Toni never called her to tell her she had been approved. When does the 3 day start. It should start today 7th of Sep 2016. Toni says no her app was approved on sat. Then she says they are not open on sat. So how does a app get approved. 3 business days is m on, tue, wed. M on was a holiday labor day. Any way Toni can't count and three days start today being she never informed my daughter of her approval. No communication and taking people money and lying is awful. I am going to fight for my daugter deposit back and report them to better business bureau. We have emails and phone records that Toni never responded. She did not do her job. Shame on her. By the reviews I am glad this happened. I dont want ny daug hter to b living in those conditions. Just because people are poor and cant afford to pay high rent prices dont mean u got to treat people that way and take a little b it of they worked hard for.Knaack properties will give my daughter her money back. Beware of these type of properties. read more