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Can I tell y’all a horror story really quick? Hold onto your butts, it’ll be a long thread. American Homes For Rent is the worst company to rent from. They use every opportunity they can to scam you out of your money and they don’t care about their tenants at all.
We rented a house from AH4R last year. Our first issue was the water bill. Like nearly $600 for just the WATER. Something was obviously wrong. But in a maintenance request and the technician discovers a faulty irrigation system. Says he fixes it, goes on his way.
I have to dispute the bill with a separate utility entity, which seems bizarre because it’s not my problem to deal with, it’s the landlords problem, but whatever. After several phone calls, the $600 is credited back to my account.
Next month, same exact thing happens. $800 utility bill. Utility company says I have to provide proof that I attempted to have it fixed before they will credit my account, again. Not sure why this falls on me to prove, but again, I make several calls and sort the issue out.
This keeps happening. Call out a technician, he says he fixes it, utility bill comes in drastically high again, fight to get it reduced, repeat. For an entire year.
Which at some point even results in an eviction notice because our landlord told us to disregard late notices due to the unfair utility charges but somehow this message was not relayed to others in the company who continued with eviction proceedings anyways. Insanity.
Also, during all of this, our air conditioning takes a shit in the middle of summer. It happens in the middle of the week, I submit a maintenance request. It was a three day holiday weekend. By the start of the weekend I still hadn’t heard back.
I called several times and was finally told it wouldn’t be until Tuesday because of the holiday. I raised hell. My house is 104 inside. I have a four year old. Still didn’t get the AC fixed until the following week.
Fast forward to the end of our lease. They tell us they’re raising the rent several hundred dollars if we choose to resign. Then tell us, from the kindness of their hearts, that they won’t raise it because of the pandemic. But we still gotta pay or gtfo.
And here’s the kicker. We clean. We make repairs. We leave. They deliver what we expect to be at least the majority of our security deposit in the mail, but instead of a check, it’s a list of damages that exceed our $1695 deposit and then some.
Some of the damages? Water damage to the frame of the house. Due to the irrigation system they spent a year “trying” to fix. “Replacement” of outlet covers that were never there to begin with. “Replacement” of shower heads because they don’t match. Ones we never touched....
Mulch replacement? $50 charge because a palm tree was touching the house??? Literally charged us for installation of transition strips inside the house. Things that weren’t removed or there in the first place. Essentially trying to take our money so they can make renovations.
And what else? A remaining $600+ utility bill. For the fucking faulty irrigation system. We owe them $85 or some shit, or we go to court. $1700 lost. They’re trying to take advantage of us during a fucking pandemic. Horribly wrong. Infuriating. Appalling.
These people have ignored our emails, essentially neglected the property they leased to us, and are now trying to charge US for the resulting repairs, during a pandemic where we’re all struggling. If you ever have a chance to rent from these people, don’t. @americanhomes4
