Garden Lakes Realty

When I moved in, the apartment hadn't been cleaned very well. There were pieces of dog food stuck under the fridge and the apartment had fleas. I don't have a pet, so I knew it couldn't have been from my family. the shutters were damaged, there was a huge black oil spot in the yard and there was still grease on the garage door from the previous tenant. The walls had been badly patched and despite being told that when the owner replaced the carpet in the apartment he would not put carpet in the dining room, on moving day there was off-white carpet in the dining room. The back door never properly closed and sagged on the hinges. It looked as if someone had attempted to repair it, so I simply listed it on the original damages. The garage door never worked properly, the electrical outlets in the kitchen would come and go. The wall above the shower was painted with interior paint and began peeling off immediately after I moved in. There was a huge lump of black hair in the shower drain (I'm very light-haired). The place had a perpetual bug problem and serious issues with keeping cool or warm because the door seals were damaged and you can see light filtering in around them. There were holes in the linoleum all over the apartment. The fridge knocked from day one. When the owners painted, they failed to paint the inside of the smaller bedroom closet and it still had crayon marks inside it. The lights on the small back deck were filthy and no one had cleaned the windows. I complained time and again and got no help with anything. The neighborhood is an entirely different issue. The elementary school is tragically bad, and the children in the neighborhood are out of control. One of them ended up hospitalized because an older boy had beaten him so badly. Right before I moved out, some kid had gotten a can of white spray paint and spray-painted my neighbor's brick wall as well as the road. One 3-year-old was almost arrested for threatening other children with a knife. My son's birthday present was stolen from our house by a kid down the street and then they stole his bike. Now onto the actual realty company. When moving day arrived, I began removing my furniture. I had a large bookshelf in the living room beside the back door. When I moved the bookshelf, there was a patch of mold underneath it and all over the bottom. The white carpet was black in a patch about 11-12". I had to throw out the bookshelf because it was ruined. I have no idea how long that mold had been there. My son is allergic to mold and it's not healthy for anyone to be around. When I contacted the realty company about replacing my bookshelf, they told me that I would have to pay a cleaning fee and if the spot didn't come up, I'd have to pay to replace the carpet, despite the fact that the issue occurred as a direct result of the shoddy repair job on the back door that permitted water (and all manner of bugs) to get inside my house. When I refused to pay the fee, I was told I would not get my $500 deposit back. They then decided that I was liable to replace a doorbell that was never on the house and to repair the spray paint damage inside and outside the house that was there when I moved in and was listed on the damages when I moved in. I suggested that we take it before a small claims judge and they company decided to give my deposit back minus a $100 cleaning fee and flatly refused to pay for the ruined bookshelf. I will never do business with this company again. I was so disappointed by the way I was treated.