Building in Bridgeland, Calgary owned by Vista Group Inc. flooded by roofers July 5th, 2013, they just started laying new material that day & most the roof was only covered by tarps, following the week of tear-off work prior! It rained hard & the wind blew off the tarps that weren't properly secured! Water was coming through the walls into units, could hear rushing water inside the walls. First one puddle from gaps in the cement ceilings, then pools of water everywhere in this 1963 building! Water came through electrical switches & lights, streaming out from under baseboards, even cracked fiber wrap around cinder blocks of the ceiling & was coming through there, behind the toilet water was also coming from inside the walls. We couldn't control the water, we tried moving things out of harms way. We laid towels, older sheets, blankets, etc. to try & control the water flow. The kitchen, coat closet, front entry , & hallway already been flooded from the water rushing through the exposed roof. Firemen showed up, I asked about the elevators. Talked about older people with walkers/ wheelchairs & oxygen. Calgary Firemen advised "Don't use the elevator & in case of emergency call 911!" They left after checking pilot lights in the gas room & turning off at least 1 tenants power. Water was rushing into all 5 floors, I seen tenants rushing into hallways, turning off their own power! I seen Seniors moping hallway floors, where water was streaming out of their units! I talked to 3 other tenants on 1st , 3rd & 4th floors doing their own electrical work , un hooking ceiling lamps, taking plates off electrical switches, allowing water to stream out.. One lady had her oven out, unplugging it as water pooled around her. Roofers showed up an hour later, they were on the roof brushing off whatever water they could, 2 others showed up with some household fans to distribute though the building. Roofers worked through the night a few nights on this building, it was constantly raining & water flowing through the roof. Tenants met to ask why they haven't vacated us, the moisture in the building & smell was making people sick! 2 days after this 1st flood, a remediation company came into the building & dropped off some blowers. Some tenants had them, some didn't , some in hallways for weeks untouched, some tenants told how/ where to use them, some tenants like us weren't home & our blower was sitting in the hallway! A day or two after, big dehumidifiers were dropped off, but never plugged in for another week. Tenants really started getting sick! Many asked the remediation supervisor about mold & asbestos. Supervisor said "No mold, or asbestos. It's the moisture affecting your throat, nose, lungs, & making it feel as if you have a cold." We reported mold on the 50 year old, wooden parkay flooring. Reported the cracks in drywall seams & why the remediation company was saying the wall was dry, when it's visually dripping water & saying "that's not mold" before any mold, asbestos or air quality tests were done "If air & mold test were done?" October 7th, 2013 a different remediation company (3 Months later)! They're going to do Asbestos abatement! When asked by tenant rep. about asbestos abatement forms & to simply share concerns from many tenants, the asbestos abatement owner "Raj" told him to F - off & mind his own F--n business! "Many tenants heard this, it was right outside the entrance!" The employees & owner "4 of them" surrounded the tenant rep. with fist up, ready to hit him, shouting so loudly at him that spit flew into his face! Owner Raj & employees shouted obscenities at tenants, including calling a 65 year old female tenant "A Fat Slob!" "The tenant rep. greeted the abatement owner & stated he's the Father of a child at the location, & was speaking on behalf of tenants with concerns for there health & safety." This abatement company used hammers on 5th floor, ate lunch in contaminated unit on 4th floor. That's just a start ! Vista Group is covering up mouldy wood floor, door frames & drywall with laminate wood floor & simply latex paint. Increasing rents so tenants move out " To do things their way, Not the right way." Scott (Maintenance Manager) Vista Group Inc. said "Mouldy floor to be glued down / covered with laminate, & that 2nd hand smoke is worse, then the amount of disturbed asbestos in the building!" at least 6 units have been inspected by Alberta Health, but they wont share the reports! 30% (16 units) of flood victims moved, some with Dr.s notes stating; "Due to Public Health concern, I advise my Patient to move!" others "Due to presence of Black Mold, I advise my patient to find suitable housing!" We moved & feel for the people still there, the new tenants with babies "who don't know what toxins are hiding in the walls, under the new, cheap flooring! Black Mold, Disturbed Asbestos & Silverfish Bugs! Dirty, unhealthy building! Vista Group / Vista Int. a U.S business! read more

I signed a 6 month lease with Vista and was told that I could go on a month by month basis when the lease was over. I was given a choice of starting on a month by month base, and the contract showed that as one of the options. In the middle of the 6th month I was RUDELY given the only options of signing another lease or being evicted. There was a clause in the contract that allowed that, and the Provincial Rental Advisory Board told me that verbal assurances meant nothing. I had had an operation and was in no position to move and had to put up with terrible neighbors for longer than I wished. read more

I highly recommend avoiding Vista Group Inc. I have seen firsthand how this company operates. Every decision that company makes is on increasing profit margins at the consumer's expense. Some examples: - they don't have a proper office, instead they awkwardly converted a rented apartment into a working space. - they have a grand total of five employees (not including building managers). These five seriously can't handle the workload and will either ignore you or take shortcuts. - they opt for cheapest route when "renovating" which usually includes slapping laminate flooring over whatever was there, and painting. That includes painting '60s era counter tops and cupboards instead of getting new ones. - many buildings don't have dedicated managers. - they increase rent in totally unreasonable amounts e.g. they took over a building in the Beltline, average rent was $1000/month + free parking. As soon as they could legally do it, rent went up to $1395 + $100 for parking. In Bridgeland, they took over a building and a tenant who was paying $700 for a bachelor saw their rent go up to $1095. Other things to consider: - the maintenance manager Scott is very hard to deal with. - buildings are generally slummy and dirty. - security deposits often don't come back within the legally required 10 day period. read more

Service is absolute shit. Our building got flooded by the roofers that vista group hired. The rains destroys this building. Now that we try to get a hold of them. NO ONE WILL CALL US BACK. I left 4 messages non of them rude but still no efforts on their part. Oh and the apartment got ruined on the 6 of this month and now it the 30th. Great to know I got a landlord that cares about its tenonts. read more

If you can, please avoid moving into one of their buildings at all costs! We have had nothing but a horrible experience. To start with, when you call Vista, the staff are horrible. They are rude and condescending. They will lie to you outiright. Any complaint you make to them will be met with "If you don't like it, you can move out." They do not try to be helpful and hide behind vauge property laws. They do not feel the need to tell you anything EVER whether it is just common curtesy or whether it is stuff they should legallly have to tell you. We moved into the building in October 2013. Since then we have had three property managers. Each time that the manager has changed, we have been giving no information to contact the new manager and no information that that change had even occured. The first time, Vista said it was an "oversight" and posted notifications of the change of management after we complained but the second time, they didn't even bother. There has been work done on the building in the past year, painting, roofing, etc. and it has all been shoddily and badly done. The painting of the stairwell still hasn't been finished six months later so it's two colours and looks awful. Our skylight is flithy and scratched after the roofers came through. They also removed our skylight (without informing us) and we found our house was full of roofing garbage and tar that had fallen through. The roofers (who we were not informed would be coming or anything about the reroofing because "it doesn't affect us" (but we hear them everyday at 6am pounding on our roof) also blocked the parkade for half a day with their truck and garbage. We were not warned so when I went to get my car to drive to work, I was trapped. When we called Vista to ask if they couldn't have notified us so we could have got our car out, we were told if we didn't like it, we could leave (but would need to break our lease and therefore lose or damage deposit. We requested a one month extension on our lease to ease the move into a new property. Our property manager said, yes that was fine and it would cost a bit extra to do a month to month lease. He told us to call a guy at Vista in order to get the paperwork. We called and the Vista guy refused to help us. He said they never do month to month leases and refused to even listen to me. He said he would call me back when he had more information. He never did. We weren't surprised because Vista never tries to actually help anyone who lives in their buildings. We saw the turn over of about a dozen tennants since we moved in. Most of them were people who had lived there for years but Vista's management was just too awful and they jacked up the rent so much each year. PLEASE DON"T MOVE HERE. read more

Worse maintenance manager or property manager whatever he is. The apartment building flooded from the roofers they got at stampede time last year. yah good time to ripoff a whole roof, time of year when it always rains and hails!! Lost my favorite comforter because of the dirty water, good cloths, water went into my food like cereal , coffee ruined and sugar and crackers!! had to throw a bunch of stuff out!! but on a paper with a pink panther the roofers gave to me it said clean rain water. Stupid!! Clean rain water after running through cracks of a dirty old building. This is Vista Groups 5 story building in Bridgeland. I was kept up for about three weeks listening to roofers with pumps on the roof all night, walking around, banging!! Then guys came in 3 days later with some blowers, and that was it. came around once a week or two checking if walls were wet. Dropped off these other machines with green garbage cans and they sat in the hallways. When they did plug them in they filled with water in no time. No wonder everyone was getting sick with all that moisture in the air. The guy i think from belfor was checking the top and middle of walls, I said check the bottom where the water was coming out from baseboards and that tester lit right up. He didn't want to bend over I guess. My floor was ruined so they put green stuff over it and left it that way! When I finally got my cupboards back in order, water came through again!! Unreal, guess good thing never put my coffee back in there or there would been problems!! Then the vista maintenance guys wanted to cover up the mold and stuff in October and I said no, this is enough and moved out. I seen my neighbors wall and the mold inside the wall by her oven. They didn't even remove it, she had enough and left to. This company Vista is bad !! I asked the maintenance men and their manager, talked to the landlords in September about possibility of asbestos in a building that old. everyone said no, nothing to worry about. I opened up my door one morning and tarp hung on my neighbors door of asbestos removal and cancer causing. Are you kidding me! The guys doing it were swearing in the halls like I didn't even exist! Every company Vista hired in the building were unlike anything i ever seen in my life. The painters had paint everywhere, when they did paint my door I couldn't get out the next morning, my door already swollen after the flood hit my apartment and then they came and painted it. After my first landlady quite and moved away , two other young people took over and stopped cleaning, that building is so dirty. The workers that were coming in would leave the locked doors open, when the locks worked, and street people would be walking in, asking for smokes and i dont smoke, then ask for money. the garbage bin was discussing and would blow garbage all over the place. I wanted to plug in my car, had the plugs but no power, only about 8 out of 60 or so plugins work in their parking lot! Im glad people are mentioning this here, I wont rent another apartment, i rented main floor of house for even less money, its clean, good roof and i dont have to worry about vista buying out the owner! P.O.S american company!! read more