“Horrible person, him and his wife. Do not rent unless you want constant harassment and banging on your door to make sure you didnt chip ANYTHING or to duct tape your entire fireplace. These people are crazy. Went to court and judge laughed at them and dismissed the eviction.”
“Stephen (Steve) Ross is the worst landlord I've ever had. He will make up his own rules despite the lease. Ultimately he evicted us because he 'never liked us' but really it was because we often didn't put up with his bullshit. Some of the biggest problems with him included: • He deposited our check 2 weeks late (despite the lease stating everything had to be squared away by the 5th). Due to this, it over drafted our account by $4. He then waited another week to notify us, but charged us a daily late fee for the full 3 weeks before notifying us. If he had deposited our check within those 5 days, the account would not have been over drafted. He was unwilling to acknowledge his own actions in this, and threatened it wouldn't be good for us if we didn't pay the fee. He said it was 'hard to get to the bank on time' despite him picking up rent a day before the 1st of the month. After we paid this additional fee, is when he evicted us. • Showing up unannounced • Insisting that he has to enter your apartment to pick up rent • Unwilling to fix things like a dishwasher that never worked, and a fence in the back that is falling apart. • The heat constantly went out in the winter • After we had been renting for well over 2 years, he went into our attic where we had storage, and tried to claim that we had to get a storage unit and that we couldn't store anything beyond luggage and a Christmas tree up there. (despite 1/3 of the stuff up there being his own lumber) • When we moved in he evicted someone in the neighboring building for racist suspicions that the tenant was dealing drugs. Despite not having any evidence other than 'people hanging around'. • I've heard multiple stories of him sexually propositioning tenants.”
“Kingston is without a doubt the worst property management company we have ever rented from. The property we rent is full of cut corners and shoddy repairs. The power goes out regularly, the floors are crumbling, and the plumbing constantly smells of sewage. Kingston’s office does not respond to emails or voicemails, and most attempts to contact them end up being transferred to a third-party maintenance call center with representatives that don’t live anywhere near Lexington. When service techs do respond to our maintenance requests, Kingston rarely authorizes anything but the bare minimum repairs - if that. Some of these maintenance issues have been going on for two years without being addressed, and no one in the office ever bothers to return a phone call.”
“I’ve only live in one of First Place Properties’ units for less than a month, and I do not recommend this property management company to anyone. The administrators of this company are unfriendly and passive aggressive towards residents. My roommates and I have frequently communicated with Aimee and Journey about maintenance issues and fees and every interaction has been unpleasant. We had an incident with maintenance letting themselves into our unit without our knowledge because their was a leak from our unit into the one below us. When we expressed our concern about not being notified and maintenance leaving our door unlocked when they left, management was terse and cold. The unit was unclean upon move-in. First Place Property units are bot well-maintained. My apartment has very poor quality paint, which has cause my roommates and I to have significant issues hanging things on the wall. When I moved in, there were holes and parts of the wall that had paint peeled off that management did not bother to repair. Additionally, the company overcharges residents. They apply a 15% “admin fee” for every charge. Months after signing my lease they required every tenant to secure “$150,000 Limit of Liability for Lessee’s legal liability for damage to Lessor’s property,” which in my case means the unit is triply insured. After only two weeks of living in the unit, Aimee began pushing us to renew our lease for the following year and has begun showing the unit to prospective tenants. This company clearly preys upon young college students who do not have rental experience. The lease is built to completely protect the company, leaving desperate tenants having to agree to violating and unforgivable conditions. I have only been here less than a month and I am already ready to move out. I do not recommend signing a lease with this company.”
“Misty has always been super responsive to messages but honestly nothing ever comes out of what we discuss. Our rent was raised more than the agreed-upon terms, we’ve had cockroaches for almost an entire year, and in the last six months, we’ve spent over a month without hot water and heat. Routine maintenance is never addressed.”
“Has been the worst experience of my life. Michael Huber et al., enter my rental unit unannounced repeatedly. Other tenants have had the same unannounced entry issue. Tenants who resist Huber Real Estate entries are threatened with eviction. He has Boomer generational control problems micro-managing everyone within his purview. Sadly, Huber Real Estate property manages several University of Kentucky neighborhood properties. Properties on the surface are beautiful, but there are (deliberately hidden) code violations.”
“There are so many things wrong with the house, to the point that the City of Lexington left a long list of required repairs. When I asked the building manager (Jey) about a repair schedule, he didn't seem to care about being cited by the city. Instead, he said something about "new windows". Meanwhile, my ceiling is caving and the hallways, porch, and yard are full of junk. I moved here because of the location, but soon found it wasn't worth it. 9 months into the lease Jey tried to add an additional $50 for parking that had always been free. I was told it was the "other management company that mishandled things'" and that I was still on the hook. Also, my upstairs neighbor has ordered large cases of prepped meals that have sat unopened in the hallways until they rotted so badly that the other tenants were vomiting in their apartments. I've avoided making maintenance requests because Jey gives me the creeps, doesn't respect anyone else's time, and ignores COVID safety precautions. Another tenant had to help me move an air conditioner (that we found just sitting in the hallway) into my window so that my apartment would stay below 90 degrees last summer. This was after a service request with no response for days. I have a dog, and every day was dangerous for both of us. Since moving here in 2021, he has never worn a mask upon entering my apartment, nor cared when I was once quarantined and tried to enter with a random contractor. After knocking on my door continuously to wake me up, he then harassed me to be allowed entry (with no prior notice or emergency situation) in order to let the cable guy "look around". I then watched through the peephole as he knocked a few times and then entered my neighbor's apartment (a young woman living alone), assuming she wasn't home. She was home. She had been asleep and was awakened by 2 strange men walking into her apartment. It made my skin crawl worse than the rotten meat. If it had been me, I would have gone into self-defense mode, so I guess he lucked out on that one. The best (aka worst) part of renting with Urban Vigor/Jey Marks is that the building manager is also a "managing" partner", and all communications go directly to Jey. In fact, when I tried to complain about my neighbor's rights being stomped on, I was told by Jey's assistant how important Jey was in the company, and basically to get over it. In order to hold him accountable, the company doesn't even have a way to complain about the many ways I feel unsafe here. Since that is the case, my only course of action is to file a legal complaint and warn as many people as possible. DO NOT RENT FROM THIS COMPANY!”
“Multiple units in the house, maintenance work that impacts everyone are not communicated spanning from noise disturbances from hammering on the exterior to entering my unit and cutting holes in the ceiling. In my time here I've had leaking pipes drench my belongs, bats enter my bedroom through unrepaired holes in the ceiling at night, removed gas leak advisories tags placed on our stove by Columbia Gas to delay repairing it, unflushable toilet for a couple weeks, and zero parking within a block of the residence due to construction (not fault of the landlord but no solutions offered). Old home hasn't been updated in years and the owner is resistant to spending funds for big repairs for quality of life.”
“UPM is the worst management company I have ever dealt with. I have lived in the apartment for seven years, the last five of which they have "managed." I pay my rent on time every single month. Their office staff is astonishingly rude and unprofessional. Maintenance is essentially non-existent; they have raised the rent twice in the last six months, claiming "below market value." However, their units are ALSO "below market quality." The building is falling apart, they employed maintenance personnel who blatantly steal from apartments. They do not screen their tenants except financially. Out-of-state fugitive with pending Rx Fraud charges? Come on over, UPM will not even bother with a ten-second Google search on you. Drug dealers welcome! Do not bother with a "noise complaint" because they will tell you there is nothing they can do. (Untrue, btw). But you can be dang sure they will look into your income, and as long as you can pay the deposit and first month, you are GOLDEN. After that, you will become just another revolving door tenant ripe for eviction. They will not care, they will just evict you to move another trash tenant in and get their deposit and month 1. The apartment has not been painted in seven years, carpet is at least that old, appliances are sh*t. Outside maintenance is mostly non-existent. Overgrown bushes, trees, and parking lot is filled with trash and potholes. Snow removal is non-existent. Broken furnace? Tough. Coldest night of the year? Tough. Avoid this "business" at all costs.”
“We moved into this ”house” on October 1, 2021. The place was absolutely filthy, we had to scrub the floors, walls, and baseboards before moving our things into the house. Immediately, we had issues with the furnace. Lexington Code Enforcement states that a property owner must maintain a 65° temperature in EACH living space, from October 1-May 15. Many times we woke up and the house was below 60°. Recently, (last week of January 2022) we woke up to the thermostat reading 46°. There was an impending ice storm on the way. We put in 10+ maintenance requests to PERMANENTLY fix the issue. We texted, emailed, and even sent multiple letters in the mail to our landlord, to no avail. She ignored us. She left our group chat THREE times. She was combative and apathetic and has clearly gotten away with this. Lexington Code Enforcement gave them 5 days (until February 5) to fix the issue. They disobeyed this order and we were within our legal rights to move out. We were interviewed by LEX18 for this. We have ample proof and the furnace issue is not even the only thing. We were illegally charged $100 a day for a security system we had permission to install. The lease states, “The tenant may have a security system and pay a one-time $75 fee and give the landlord access to the code.” We offered this to our landlord and maintenance multiple times and we were rejected. We obtained a lawyer who guided us through this process so as to not break any laws, otherwise, we would be lost and FREEZING inside of that trash dump on Park Avenue with the YELLOW DOOR. I do have pictures but no links to them. They’re saved onto my phone.”
The Lexington Tenant Review 