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The Company: Typical "evil landlord" fare. They have the usual disdain for their customers that most LA landlords do. They raised rents while under an LA Rent Stabilization Ordinance that prevents such rent increases and when a handful of people called them out for it they said it was raised in "Error" and those that didn't call them out on it continue to pay it. They're making thousands of dollars in extra rent from tenants that are simply unaware of the ordinance. Additionally, they have units that are just converted common areas and off the books, and rent units as "2 bedrooms" even though the second bedroom isn't up to city code to be used as a bedroom. When challenged by the city they ask effected tenants if they can move beds out the illegal bedroom for inspection day.
The whole company is essentially just 3 or 4 people and they're complete luddites (hence the laughable .jimdo website). There are no modern business technologies used in any way. Not even shared online documents. They email unformatted word files back and forth to each other to edit like it's the 90s. And their aversion to modern tech trickles down to tenants. No (or awful) online payment systems, no tenant portal for repairs or maintenance, no key fobs, no Amazon lockers or similar package system, dated garage and elevator security systems, etc. They're unwilling to grow with the times and because of it everyone's job is so much harder then it needs to be which makes them all miserable, which in turn makes them rude, unprofessional bullies to everyone they come in contact with. Every employee/contractor has disdain for the office. I've never heard a single kind word about any of them. "Toxic Work environment" is an understatement.
The owner is unaware, stubborn, and completely out of touch.
The "vice president" who mostly runs the show thinks she's big business but she acts like a little kid playing "corporation." She has no idea what she's doing and mostly just makes it up as she goes along with about a 4th grade reading and writing comprehension. She constantly excuses her poor performance by saying "I have SO many buildings!" or "Do you know how many tenants I have?!" And doesn't understand that all she's doing is admitting to being bad at her job and confirming there is a lack of professional corporate infrastructure.
The maintenance supervisor is an unpleasant, rude, robot of a human with even worse reading and writing comprehension.
The in-house maintenance team are kind people, but mostly untrained handymen with no specific areas of expertise, and they have no training in customer service. I once watched a service man "fix" a stuck door by pulling a box cutter out of his pocket and hacking away at the edge of the door like a boyscout with a stick, completely ruining it. It's all just bandaids on broken limbs.
The leases contain covenants that don't legally hold up because they directly break California tenant laws, including only accepting notices to vacate on the first of the month and never charging partial months which only serves to make them more undeserved money.
Lastly, the building management system itself is set up so that on-site resident managers have to act as go-betweens for all tenants and the office, but are given no actual support or aid to do so effectively or easily. The office tries to micromanage all of the unimportant things like their nonsensical "formatting" of documents and basic email correspondence (which is hilarious considering they're terrible writers with poor grammar), but they have absolutely no interest in aiding or overseeing ACTUAL issues because that would mean they'd have to actually problem solve and deal with people which they are unwilling to do. Managers are barred from giving tenants the office's information. The office wants credit for being leaders but has no ability or interest to actually lead. Everything is the managers' fault, even when it isn't.
This managerial system is also bad for the tenants because if they have an issue with a manager or a problem that a manager cannot help with, the tenants have no recourse.
I could go on. And on. And on. I could write a book.
This entire organization is a dumpster fire and if you've gotten this far in reading this, I hope you'll save yourself any further time and headache and stay as far away as possible in all regards. read more