This was the worst experience I have had as a renter in 9 years. To be clear and fair, I want to state that I am writing about an experience 2 years ago. I didn't know about yelp at the time, but I had such a bad experience I think it's worth mentioning still. I found what seemed to be a good deal on a small apartment. When I went to see it, it was a mess. We can ignore the numerous flaws that you can come to expect when renting a cheap apartment, such as awful cabinets that were falling apart, crooked fixtures, an oven/stove so old it had push buttons instead of dials and looked like a toy. I can agree that you get what you pay for. But besides those things, the apartment was filthy. One wall was painted (unevenly) dark red. There was dirt and garbage everywhere, and some of the electrical outlets were missing covers. The woman who was showing the apartment told me that it would all be cleaned by the date I told her I needed to move. Okay. No big deal. I went to the apartment one or two days before moving, when she gave me the keys, to check it out and plan for moving. It had not been touched. I called her, and she said she would send the woman out "again." When moving day came around, it still had not been touched. The place was still exactly as filthy as it had been when I saw it. I ended up cleaning it myself. There was a crunchy old corn husk between the oven and cabinet... dirt and food in the cabinets, grease on everything, and a disgusting, grey, used q-tip in the mirror in the bathroom. I'm sorry, your cleaning lady came twice and missed all of those things? Right. So after cleaning the apartment myself, removing at least 20 nails from the walls, and painting it using my own money (I was informed after signing the lease that they do not paint the walls) to cover the horrible, uneven red paint, I finally was able to relax. Right? Wrong. I found black mold under the sink, and the maintenance guys came out and painted over it with white paint. Nice fix. The electrical outlets still didn't have covers after I moved in, so they brought me those and just let me put them on myself. Thanks. Then this woman moved in next door to me with THREE medium/large size dogs (these are tiny one bedroom apartments). My apartment was on the bottom floor, in the corner. The woman steadily amassed a collection of garbage (including a dog-crap covered kitchen spatula which she would leave on top of the improvised wall), and used it to blockade the walkway on the other side of her door, "so her dogs wouldn't escape." Fire hazard? No one cared until I was moving out and the woman was bringing someone else to look at the apartment. Aside from this woman's dogs, many other tenants had dogs. Dogs which they would take out and let them pee and crap anywhere they wanted and not clean it up. So walking in the parking lot was like a little doggie mine field. If you didn't watch it, you would step in a steaming heap. In the winter months, they didn't shovel. The hill leading into the parking lot got taken care of, but only because the business in front of the apartment building took care of it. When my lease was up, at 6 of the longest months ever, of course I was moving out. The same woman I had been dealing with this whole time decided that it was time to show my apartment before I moved out. While this has never happened to me in any other apartment, I do understand that it is technically in the lease that the landlords are allowed to do it. It helps them not have apartments vacant. I get that. However, this woman gave me just a couple days notice, and when I told her I had prior plans and couldn't be there to let her in, she told me that she was legally allowed to come in whether or not I was there and that the appointment would not be changed.
I would not wish this kind of experience on anyone. I strongly recommend that you find a different place to live and do not sign yourself into a contract forcing yourself to deal with these people for any amount of time. read more