If there's an option for negative stars, Caribou would get it! They are awful! My condo association brought them on as property management. At first they were pretty good in getting things done, and admittedly the property did have a lot of things that needed taking care of. As time passed, the property got passed from one manager to the next. Things got bad quick! They came up with a special assessment payment schedule for all the owners to pay an additional $5000+ for the year in HOA fees to make major repairs on the property, and that was the cost to cover everything. Well the following year, guess what? Only part of what needed repairing got completed and everyone now has to pay an additional $3000+ this/next year in special assessment fees! They charged my HOA $40/hour for cleaning of the grounds and common areas in the building, when they only pay their cleaning crew $13.80/hour! Talk about some sketchy crap! They also double dip in their charges for repairs, i.e. they will bill the HOA for certain types of work done on top of charging each individual owner if work is done for a single unit! Is that even legal?
About a few months before we switched management companies, suddenly all of the recycling dumpsters on the property disappeared. I asked one of the property caretakers, and she gave me some sketchy answer about how the waste management company goes through all the trash once everything is back at the facility and sort out trash from recycling, so it's more cost effective to eliminate recycling bins when they do all the work anyway back at the facility. Um...what? Anyone else smell some B.S.?
What sent me over the edge about Caribou was over the summer, there were some scheduled repairs to fix the dryer vents in each unit and it was going to be about a 3 week project, which required maintenance to enter each unit multiple times throughout the 3 weeks, 5 days a week, from 8am-4:30pm. I am a freelancer, so my work hours are sporadic, so I emailed the property manager to ask for more specific times my unit will need to be available, and if there was something they could do to accommodate my work schedule. Not only was he not willing to lift a finger to help, he talked to me as if I'm a tenant of his, and he was my landlord. He refused to let me talk to his maintenance staff to work something out, as he said that he had no control over timing since he was the one doing the repairs. And then in his response email he wrote, "your dad has been working with us with the repairs of the previous two buildings, so you can ask him how the process works" (my dad was on the board of directors for the HOA). Again, WHAT? What is this? 1954? I have to go ask my dad? Furthermore, he is getting paid by my HOA to answer my questions, not pass me off to my dad! It's not like he's paying my dad a cut of what he's getting from my HOA. I had smoke coming out of my ears, and chose to call him instead of emailing back and forth. The conversation was unproductive, and ended in my hanging up on him. During the actual repairs, I talked to the maintenance staff and they were more than happy to accommodate my schedule, no problems at all. Nothing like what the guy was trying to make it out to be.
My association has since parted ways with Caribou, thankfully. Though we now have to hire accounting investigators to figure out why the funds for the repairs were used up so quickly and so off from the original estimate. Sketchy!!!
Stay away from these guys!!!! Negative infinity stars! read more
