DJW Property Management

Avoid at all costs. Find another place to rent with a different company.

Please, please, please, look at all these reviews before signing any contract with DJW. Even if the home and price seems worth it to you, don't make the same mistake we did. I ignored all the bad reviews because we liked the house and neighborhood and couldn't possibly think a company could be so evil. Our lease is set to terminate on 4/30/20. When they sent me the renewal it stated that if we do not sign, we will be asked to vacate. It also stated that we need to give 45 days notice if we do not choose to renew our lease. On 3/2/20 (58 days before lease termination) I wrote DJW to tell them that we purchased a home and will not be renewing our lease. They responded by saying all "45 day" notices need to be submitted on the 1st of the month. Since I was 2 days late to that rule, they will not accept my written notice until 4/1/20 meaning we can't terminate our lease until 5/15/20 and we are responsible for rent and utilities until that date. This also means that if you want to vacate and terminate your lease on the exact date you must provide 60 days notice, which contradicts their 45 day rule. I even offered to pay until 4/30 and move out early so they can market the home and find a new tenant and they refused to work with me. Their response was, "Per Idaho Fair Housing laws we are not able to make an exception." This is not the 1st 1-star review and it won't be the last. Instead of taking all this negative feedback to better their business model and customer service, the owner will instead write a response that says something like, "our lease is clear and concise and we are compliant with all Idaho Fair Housing laws." They made it clear on what I signed 18 months ago, but they also made it very clear that they do not like repeat business. I own two homes and I almost gave DJW those rentals to manage, but I will never put my tenants through anything close to what we have been put through. The saddest part about all of this is that it can all be avoided if they would just accept a 58 day notice to not renew my lease.

I paid each contract up front and they charged me all sorts of administration fees at the end. Watch the contract dates! A 12 month contract could be 13 months or more. I would NOT recommend them!

From an owner's perspective and one that has used other property management companies in the past, I highly recommend avoiding DJW property management. My personal experience is that there are some shady business practices going on with regards to the terms for the owners. If I had to do it again, I would go elsewhere and will recommend to everyone else to do the same (and will continue to do so until something changes).

We signed a one year lease with DJW on a property in Meridian with an option to continue month to month. Before the year was up the tried to exercise a clause in the contract to make us leave in 45 days because we were unwilling to sign another one year lease at an increased price. We had several issues including light bulbs that were burned out before we moved in, air conditioner stopped working, landscape sprinklers that took over a month to repair. We ended up doing everything ourselves. This amazingly incompetent duo of Gwen and Denny shouldn't be running a paper route. I have no idea how anyone gets to run a property management company but my guess is there is no pre-requisites. Anybody who can fog a mirror can own one. Too bad for consumers. We caught them in several lies and when I pushed back, Denny got on the phone and threatened me. Denny had the nerve to call me a 'nightmare tenant'. He said I called in and bullied the staff. Well if calling a couple of times a week to remind the staff that our sprinkler is still not fixed and temperatures in May are reaching 95 then I'm a nightmare tenant. If taking great care of the inside and outside of the house and paying rent every month by the 3rd of the month, then I am a nightmare. I own three other rentals and I would love to have a 'nightmare tenant' like myself in all of them. Save yourself the frustration if you are looking for a property management or a rental. These people are not honest and they do not care about you property. RUN!!!

We are home owners who have rented at times while building or remodeling our next home (4 times now). We have always had positive rental experiences in the past. We are excellent renters who take care of the properties we rent and we always pay our rent on time. Our experience with DJW Property Management was the first negative rental experience we have had. From the beginning, things seemed odd. First, when we viewed the home we were considering it was apparent that the typical repairs/painting that is normally done between tenants was not done. We figured they would take care of those items before we took possession, but that did not happen. Rather than doing a walk-through with us to note the items that were damaged or not completed by the previous tenant, they left a paper for us to fill out on our own. There were so many dings, scratches, broken knobs, holes in the wall, etc. that we couldn't fit them all on the page so we wound up taking pictures of everything and sending those to them as our proof of the issues upon move in. None of these items were taken care of except a toilet getting fixed, a faucet getting fixed, and a couple cabinet knobs being replaced. The paint issues, holes in the walls, etc. remained throughout our rental time. Our lease stated that we were to be given 24 hours notice whenever they needed to come into the property for maintenance or anything else. However, repeatedly the maintenance man (the owner's father) would stop by and start working on the property without notice and/or without schedule a time with us. We had to spend hundreds of dollars in lawn care to turn the dying, diseased lawn around. There were water issues in the backyard (poor grading and planning since water from the home behind this one would run into and flood the backyard, making it dangerous for our small children to play in the backyard). They also require that you pay your rent through their website (which charges you fees to do so) or pay a $25 fee for mailing in your rent payment (they do not have a drop-off payment option). I've never heard of a company charging you for paying your rent. This seemed very odd. The worst issues we had with this company, however, occurred near the end of our lease. Their lease agreement states that one must give 45 days notice. However, in another part it mentions that notice can only be given on the 1st day of a month. Since they run their leases starting at the beginning of a month, it would be completely impossible to give anything less than 60 days notice. So, why not just say 60 days notice? Or do 30 days notice like most property management companies do? My belief, and that of a government agency I spoke with, is that they intentionally set their lease up this way to confuse folks and get them an addition 2-4 weeks of rent from every tenant who signs. We left the home in better condition than we received it. We had taken care of many issues that were present when we moved in because we couldn't stand to live with them (doors that wouldn't shut, missing towel holders, missing mirrors, etc.) We also left our nice curtain rods because previous tenants had hung and removed so many before us that there were hardly any spots of drywall left to hang ours. So, we figured if we left ours it would be easier for the next people. We also left the mirror and towel holders we had purchase and installed. We were raised to always leave places better than we found them and we have never had someone take advantage of this until renting from DJW. As I mentioned, when we moved in, the walls had not been touch-up painted. There were dings and holes throughout the house. We knew we wouldn't be in the home long so we didn't bother hanging anything on the walls, so we didn't create any new holes. My son had scratched up a couple spots on one wall with his toys so I decided that since I was going to be touch-up painting that room, I would go ahead and take care of the spots left by the previous tenant. Well, no good dead goes unpunished with these folks. The paint that was left at the house for touching up was extremely confusing. Nothing was labeled, and there were multiple shades of similar colors which made it difficult to know which color went where. I touched up with the colors that appeared to match. Unfortunately, they did not, so I tried again the next day and again they did not match. I then took samples from each wall to the local paint shop and had them color match each one. I had to purchase about $150 worth of paint because the needed paint left at the house was either dried up or didn't match the color matches. There were also rooms where one wall was a slightly different color than the next. It was a nightmare. So, after 3 days of paying a babysitter and spending my time and money painting spots left by the previous tenant, I felt the home was ready for our walk-through. It definitely looked better than it had when we moved in. The gal who walked through with us noted a couple rooms where she felt the paint didn't match perfectly but said she would check with another gal in the company and see if it was good enough. We figured it wouldn't be an issue since it looked better with slightly off paint than the holes and dings looked before we filled and painted them. Another gal called me a couple days later and told me that the painting was not good enough and that I either could go repaint those areas or she would take the cost to have it professionally painted out of our deposit. I asked her how much that would be and she couldn't tell me. I insisted that I needed to know the amount it would cost before I could make a decision and eventually (after arguing with her for quite awhile) she agreed to have her painter go take a look at it and let me know how much. When she called to tell me how much all she would say is that he said it would take 8 hours (not how much that would be). We are talking about maybe 10-20 touch up areas so I knew that was ridiculous. With the right color of paint, I could have it done in an hour. She said it was going to take 8 hours because he needed to sand the walls, re-texture them, and then re-paint. Anyone knows that you don't do this when you repaint a house, much less when you touch up. I told her that was ridiculous and that it felt like a scam. I also told her I would re-paint the spots if she could tell me the right color of paint to use (since nothing had matched before). She said she could not and that I would have to figure that out. I told her it seemed fair that, since these spots were not even from us (and were there from the previous tenant), that they should pick up the cost of any paint I would need to buy going forward and I would do the work. She refused. We argued and she eventually hung up on me. I spent another $50-100 on paint, money for a babysitter, and 2 more days painting, waiting for the areas to dry to see if they matched, and painting again when they didn't. I confirmed with them which areas needed to be done. I was unable to meet them for another walk-through (because I had the flu) so they walked through on their own and said they would call me that day if there were any issues. I wound up painting entire walls to get it to match, so I knew there shouldn't be any issues. The company didn't call that day, so, based on what they had said about calling if there were any issues, I figured we were good. They called a few days later (after I texted several times to confirm we were going to get our deposit back) and they said they needed to meet me at the house to discuss issues. My husband met them at the house (because I was still sick) and the gal proceeded to show him a room that they had never mentioned before being an issue. And, I believe the spots in that room were from the previous tenant and not anything that I had touched up anyway. We were so frustrated and disgusted by this point that my husband asked the gal to have the owner of the company call us. Within minutes, I had a message from one of the gal's that they would be sending our full deposit out right away. It was odd how quickly they changed their tune when they thought the owner might get pulled into our situation. While we did eventually get our full deposit back, we had spent hundreds of dollars and countless hours painting spots that were left by a previous tenant. We would never rent from this company again (or do any kind of business with them) and are only posting this review to hopefully help others avoid this kind of situation. There are great property management companies in the area so there really is no point in renting from one that is potentially scamming folks to get extra money (and free painting). Update 8/29/13: I got a phone call from DJW 4.5 months after we moved out of the rental house telling me I owed a Sewer bill that was never paid by the owner of the property. Originally, we had agreed that we would pay for sewer, however, when their homeowner was delinquent on the account and the Sewer company couldn't put the bill in our name until the owner brought the account current, we were told by DJW that "the owner would take care of the bill." We followed up with the sewer company for a couple months (trying to be nice) and still the owner had not caught it up and we could not put it in our name. I called DJW again and they said not to worry about the bill since the owner was not catching it up. Then, 4.5 months after we move out, DJW calls me and tells me to "do the right thing" and pay the bill (that the owner never did catch up and that DJW told us not to worry about). Absolutely a SCAM of a company! They will try to squeeze money out of you anyway they can! STEAR CLEAR!