Tag: unsafe

Review of Gary Mielcarek by taylorwa99

The Lexington Tenant Review1 Comment

"My landlord owns several properties on campus, and the one I rent is next door to another one of his properties (so I've seen the condition of both). Both houses are quite old, built in the 20s, and while that's not necessarily an issue in itself, they have been maintained VERY poorly by the landlord. In many parts of the house, the flooring is mismatched and uneven, and in some cases the walls are literally crumbling apart. A couple months after we moved in we noticed that the kitchen ceiling would leak after the upstairs shower was used, as well as a large (and slowly expanding) crack in the ceiling where this was happening. Landlord was notified immediately, but it took over 4 months to resolve this issue. As with any maintenance issues (there were many others), Gary would always use a band-aid, half-assed solution at first. He eventually sent a 'plumber' over (who we found out wasn't even a licensed plumber and just did it as a side gig while he worked at the Apple store, yup) who temporarily fixed the leak but after about a week we had problems yet again. The house is very poorly insulated, with doors and most windows having visible gaps in them, as well as some visible gaps in the flooring (where you can see to the outside). Needless to say this was a major hassle during the winter time, and it made our heating costs skyrocket. Gary refused to take responsibility for this or pay for any of the heat bill since it was "our job" to better insulate the house (??). There is also a ridiculous amount of space, especially in the crawlspace under the house and in the attic, for pests to live unhindered. We've seen mice, opossums, and even a bat once. Gary also eschews the responsibility of dealing with these other than haphazardly placing a few mouse traps every once in a while, even though our lease specifically states that pest issues are his responsibility. Last but certainly not least, he has several times entered the house unannounced, without waiting for someone to answer the door. On one of those occasions as well, he proceeded to enter the bathroom without knocking, which is a major no-no. He has been rude to me several times over text after I've made maintenance inquiries, and is overall just an extremely skeezy guy. The ONLY reason this house (and likely many of his other properties) hasn't had to be remodeled completely is because Gary has a constant supply of desperate college kids looking for housing on campus. He is a master at taking advantage of this demographic, who have little time or the capacity to deal with the severity of issues this house has."

Review of Merrick Place Apartments by DisgruntledRenter

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"They’re terrible, lazy, and self-entitled. Refuse to help any tenant. Management openly discriminates against black lives, lets their employees fly massive trump flags on their trucks, and allows pedophiles and felons to move in."

Review of Joseph Smith by KYLEXMOM

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“Mr. Smith was rude and hateful. We did have an issue with getting the rent payment to go through to him, but we offered to bring him cash, money order, whatever he wanted.. he would not accept. He gave us 24 hours to vacate on 8 January 2020, when he hadn't accepted Dec & Jan rent. So we just moved out in one day rather than deal with this crazy man. He came into our home unannounced, he didn't respond to texts or voicemails. Not worth dealing with this hateful person.”

Review of Bob Waller by sagg1991

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“Bob Waller is the worst landlord I have ever had to date. He sent out evictions to four people in my neighborhood and the day before the court date he had his maintenance man go around and tell the tenants that the court date was pushed back a week. This was a lie in hopes that they wouldn’t show up for the original court date. The entire two years that I’ve been here he has never lifted a finger to find anything and threatened me with eviction when I tried to politely and professionally push the issue. This is only the surface of the problems I have had with this slumlord. If you ever take any advice in life, please, please, do not rent from Bob Waller.”

Review of Dix Brown by ManwichOfTheDead

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“It's been many years since I rented from Dix Brown, but I saw that he was reviewed on here and, honestly, was surprised he's still in the landlording hustle. But given what I've read about him, I think it's still important to leave this review because his approach as a landlord should be seen as a pattern and not an anomaly. Dix (and/or his company, Dixon Electric) bought the house me and two of my friends were living in some time through the lease of our second year. He immediately came in with some folks and cut a gigantic hole in our kitchen ceiling because... honestly, I don't remember. Maybe something actually needed repaired. But the key here is that they just cut a whole in the drywall of the ceiling that was large enough to probably drop a sedan through. And then they left. They left our kitchen covered in drywall dust. They left the hole literally for the rest of our tenure of that year (we all moved out after that year). We asked him if he was gonna ever come back and finish whatever he was fixing, and.. honestly, I don't remember what the answer was. What I remember was seeing squirrels perched up at the lip of the hole in the kitchen, watching me eat cereal. I remember how long it took to clean up the drywall. I remember him leaving shitty voicemails threatening us because we hadn't paid rent (because we foolishly believed we could withhold rent to leverage him to fix the kitchen ceiling - don't do that without consulting some kind of legal counsel, btw). It was pretty slummy. As shitty as my tenant experience was while Dix Brown was my landlord, I will say this: we cleaned the hell out of that apartment, and he did return our entire security deposit when we moved out. I'll give him that. But I would never rent from him again. I'd rather sleep in my car than roll those dice.”

Review of Jey Marks (Urban Vigor) / Krista McLaughlin (McGregor Properties) by Mollystout

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"I rented from Krista McLaughlin and McGregor Properties in 2019. The property was sold to a different company, Urban Vigor LLC, during my lease. Let's just say the transition was not handled well and I have numerous issues with both companies. My main issues were: 1. Urban Vigor did not pay the gas bill which was outlined as included in my rent, so my gas was shut off. They said this was not their fault since the previous owners with McGregor Properties didn't tell them they had to pay this bill when they bought the property? 2. When Columbia Gas came to turn the gas back on, it turns out I had been living for a year with a "red tag condition" that could have resulted in my injury or death (photo of letter attached). They turned my stove on, but I had to live without heat until I moved out two months later. It was spring, but it was still cold and I'm entitled to heat! 3. I moved out due to the above and due to being treated really unprofessionally by Jey Marks at Urban Vigor. But it did not stop there - I did not get my security deposit check and pro-rated rent refund check back for 82 days after move out. Countless calls, emails, and even in person trips to their office were made...TERRIBLE follow-up and they lied to me numerous times. Also, it is mandatory in the state of KY for landlords to return the security deposit within 60 days of move out, so what they were doing was ILLEGAL and was during a PANDEMIC. Overall, rude, unethical, illegal, bad people. Don't do it!"

Review of Denton Floyd Real Estate Group by TCunningham

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“Triple Crown at Tates Creek probably has a new name again by now, but that's not suprising because they changed management about once a year. But Denton Floyd real estate is who got us to finally leave. The last 2 years we lived there, we had a recurring bed bug infestation. It was disgusting and we ended up having to throw away furniture. I'm still wary of buying furniture with cloth upholstery because the memory of bugs is too disgusting... They sprayed at least 6 times, and the only thing we could really do was move. Disgusting. ALSO the maintenance was slow and the workers didn't want to be there, one of them even told me they weren't getting paid what they were told. We had a broken fridge for over a month waiting for them to get around to fixing it. I ended up calling upper management really angry that they were forcing me to not have a refrigerator. All of my food spoiled, in the fridge and the freezer. We demanded they pay us in damages and I think they took $200 or something off our rent the next month, but that doesn't make up for how badly they ignored us for weeks and weeks. I lived directly across the parking lot from the office and could see what maintenance was doing most of the time: raking/blowing leaves or picking up trash in the parking lot. Eventually they didn't even get us a new fridge like they said they would, they just switched out our broken one for the one sitting in the vacant apt above us.... Why they couldn't have done that to begin with I still don't know. We didn't get our deposit back, tho we did have cats (that we paid entirely too much rent for). The pet rent is per animal, in case they weren't clear with you upfront. AND once when we were renewing our lease a new girl in the front office said it was fine to have 3 cats, so we adopted a stray. But soon someone else noticed and said we couldn't... So we, again, put our foot down and pointed out its was what was written in our lease agreement. Needless to say, we left as soon as we could find a new place. Stay away from Pimlico Pkwy!”

Review of Reisig Group by Anonymous

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"Their communication methods are sloppy. They send mass emails periodically regarding policies that other tenants have broken, that appear to be targeted at you. Reps have also shown up unannounced to ‘test keys’ without masks and not following social distancing measures."

Review of Dixie Moore by Lex1

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"I rented a duplex at 1501 Fontaine Drive. She lived on one side and I was on another. We shared a part of the basement with a washer and dryer. The duplex itself was nice and spacious. Antique charm and hardwood floors. Rent was reasonable considering the location. The landlord did an excellent job with home maintenance. The duplex has a garage but it is tiny and even a mid-sized sedan feels cramped. The driveway is also very awkward to enter and exit as there is a Curb and turn near the garage. I did have several bad experiences with the landlord which I will state in chronological order. She pulled me aside and asked “if I had a young man over for the night” - which I did my cousin who helped me move in- I felt she was trying to discern my sexuality or accuse me of something... On innumerable occasions she asked what kind of toilet paper I used. I never clogged a toilet during my entire 18 months here. To my knowledge the plumbing seemed to work fine for a 90-year-old home. She insisted on my using “biodegradable toilet paper..” As it was better for the pipes. If any laundry was accidentally left in the washer or dryer. It was thrown on the floor. She washes hers and then she put any laundry found back where she found it. I would come home from work, having left for work and placed clothes in the washer. Only to find them In a wet pile on the floor. She entered my duplex unannounced on numerous occasions. I would return home and find things moved. My wife even returned home early from work and found her in the kitchen - unannounced. She would make up excuses to come over on about a once-a-month basis to “check on something”. On several occasions she would come over without 24 hours notice. She openly admitted to discriminating against couples. I decided not to reapply to extend my lease as she said “I don’t rent to couples.” I should note- we did not move in together until well after I rented the duplex. She informed me that she prefers young single professionals who stay busy. I am all of those but single now. Overall I’m glad that we did not stay/could not stay with Dixie at the duplex on Fontaine. She did not respect us as a family or our right to privacy as tenants. We no longer felt comfortable at that location. However, we enjoyed the physical space and neighborhood."