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Review 4/18/2009
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This company is horrific!! They never return phone calls. They could care less if there's anything wrong with the apartment. And then it takes weeks to get anything fixed. Here is what happened in the 5 months that we lived there - we could not leave fast enough!!
I picked up the keys for the apartment on October 16, 2008. First of all, I was told by Karen (an officer worker) to meet her at the office at 9am (on October 16) to sign the lease. I arrived a few minutes before 9am and sat outside on the bench until 930am waiting for someone to show up. Luckily, Kathy (another office worker) finally arrived and assisted me. However, there were multiple errors on the lease (that she did fix). She also mentioned, as we were going over the lease, that there used to be a frat house next door. This was the first mention of a frat house that I had heard of. Much to my disappointment, the frat house is in fact still there. We suffered through countless sleepless nights due to their loud partying. We had to call the police on them numerous times while living there. We complained to the Greek Chapter President at Cal State Long Beach. Towards the end of us living there, we moved our bed into the living room because they were so loud. The house is not labeled as a frat house, and it is not fair that your company is not giving prospective tenants a warning about this.
Then, I arrived at the apartment and went from room to room to make sure that the lights and plumbing were all working. The bathroom in the master bedroom had a tub leak and the bathroom in the hallway had a toilet leak. I was told the apartment had been empty for almost 2 months before we turned our application in. Why then were these 2 leaks not fixed? I did call Tom, the maintenance guy, as told by Shawn (the building manager) that day and waited over 6 hours before he finally returned my call. Luckily, the toilet only sprayed water everywhere when flushed; otherwise our apartment would have been flooded by then!
Although we were told the apartment had been empty for almost 2 months, it couldn’t possibly have been cleaned since the previous tenants moved out! There were brown splatters all over the kitchen counters, not to mention a thick layer of dust (in the kitchen and bathrooms). The carpet and linoleum floors were filthy!! The refrigerator and freezer in the apartment were also disgusting. I spent over an hour scrubbing them out before I felt comfortable putting my groceries in them. There was also a food wrapper in the freezer! I checked the washer-dryer before using them and cleaned a grapefruit size ball of lint from in and behind the dryer lint trap! After I called the office and complained, Shawn did come over and clean the apartment. However, the apartment was not thoroughly cleaned, even with him doing so. And this should have been done before I was even given the keys! I still had to do a heavy duty cleaning before we could move anything into the apartment.
Also, the window screen in the extra bedroom had a 1 inch wide, 6+ inch long gap. The windows were left open and I had to kill multiple bugs that had come in to the bedroom because of the gap.
Then, when we moved in on Saturday (October 18), we noticed that there was a lot of mildew under the kitchen sink. Come to find out, there were not 1 but 2 kitchen sink leaks! That brings us to a grand total of 4 leaks. 1 of the leaks was a heavy leak that was aggravated by the dishwasher running. Thus, the dishwasher was unusable. My husband called Tom first thing Sunday morning (as it was too late on Saturday to call him) and we were told that there was a meeting on Monday morning and to expect someone to come fix the leaks between 12-1pm on Monday. He said this was the soonest he could get them fixed. I waited and waited and waited on Monday and finally called to check up on things about 130pm. I was basically called a liar and told that he never said a specific time but instead that someone would call us. He was incredibly rude and finally said that Rigo (handy man) would be calling me to come fix them. So apparently my husband and I are both delusional as we both distinctly remember the conversation with Tom on Sunday, where he stated someone would be there between 12-1pm. Regardless, Rigo did come on that Monday to fix the leaks.
I called the office a few days after we moved in to voice my concerns. I started with the words “There are a few problems…” when I was told by Kathy to turn in my walk-through checklist and promptly hung up on.
In addition to the above problems, we also had to have the mildew/moldy board under the kitchen sink replaced, a bread board made (as there was just a gap where it should have been), all of the outlets in the apartment replaced (as they were all either nonfunctional or too loose to hold a plug), and a new stove had to be installed (as the previous stove had a dysfunctional pilot light). All of these repairs were dragged out and time consuming. There were times where I had to call Shawn and/or Rigo multiple times before I would finally get to talk to someone. They rarely, if ever, returned my calls. And it took months before everything was fixed; at least what was a necessity.
We called on February 18, 2009 to put our 30-day notice in. My husband spoke with Kathy and was told to email the notice in writing as well. I promptly emailed at the apparently nonfunctional email address (support@dmproperties.net). I received no reply or confirmation. I sent a second email on February 21. I also called the office that same day and ended up having to leave a message. I did not receive a response. My husband called the office again on February 26 and also had to leave a message. This is pretty typical as it seems no one is ever there to answer the phone. We finally received a response on February 27 from Kathy, confirming our move out date of March 21. Our last month’s rent was to be $945.
We then received a letter, attached to our door, on March 8. The letter stated that we still owed $450 and a late fee. It continued on to say we needed to pay up, move out, or risk getting evicted. Sadly enough, we weren’t really surprised that someone had, again, dropped the ball at your office. However, it was very frustrating and irritating to be receiving such a letter when we had been told our move out date was confirmed. The following day (March 9), I called Jerry and was basically told that he had forgotten to update the system. How nice.
Coming from a previous tenant, who had the numerous problems listed above; it should be no surprise that we were anxious to get the heck out of that apartment. We ended up moving a week early (March 14). We moved everything out, cleaned the apartment (left it much cleaner than when we received it), and handed our keys and remotes over to Shawn.
Renter beware! Stay away from this company! I would give it 0 stars but it appears 1 star is the lowest.
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