Angie,
To start, our review was not in reference to the return deposit. We expected the charge for the door. We tried to directly pay the person that replaced the door, but he had already billed Command Properties. The $50 to clean the oven door seemed steep, but it was nothing we were worried about compared to the other $880 we spent on other cleanings. Our complaint is about the state that the home was in when we arrived. As stated before, we moved across the country and expected the property to be clean and everything to be functioning when we arrived in Virginia with all of our things.
Attached is a list of the suggestions from the inspection on July 19th, nine days before we moved in. None of these items were attended to, except for the FRONT yard being mowed. Attached is also an email correspondence (identifying information has been blocked out in email screenshots) admitting that cleaners had not come to the home before we moved in. Additionally, while the email claims that the yard was mowed, the grass in the back yard was up to my waist, and regardless of how much or little it rains, grass does not grow that much in nine days. Additionally, I have attached pictures of the front yard comparing move in/move out landscaping. Landscaping is listed as a tenant responsibility, yet when we moved in, things were completely overgrown (this issue is also seen listed from the move in inspection and was not taken care of before we arrived).
Additionally, the dryer did not function when we moved in. It would not even turn on. This would have been an easy thing to have noticed before we arrived if someone had taken the time to test appliances. Attached is an email showing that we did not receive a functioning dryer until we had lived in the property for over 3 weeks. We were not offered a discount on our rent or compensation for needing to take our clothes elsewhere to clean them.
Addressing your claim that the pest problem did not come up until 8 months into us living in the property, we have attached an email from 6 weeks into us living there, following up on a voicemail I had left regarding finding roaches in the basement.
While we can admit that the owner moving back was not Command Properties fault, the way it was communicated to us was less than ideal and sent us into a panic. The icing on the cake was that we were charged a full month's rent for July, which nearly over drafted the account we had set up with autopay, after we were asked to vacate by July 15th and it took several days to receive a reimbursement.
The property had been vacant for over a month before we moved in, so there was ample time for things to be addressed before we arrived. While response time to emails was always quick, receiving actual service to address our issues took weeks. Because we had moved across the country and spent most of our money on the move, we did all the work ourselves, so we could start unpacking our UHaul, and start settling in. We were told that since we did not have receipts, we could not be reimbursed. Sorry that we did not have the money to front to get cleaners and didn't want to wait 3 weeks have a clean home to live in (It took 3 weeks for someone to finally show up and replace the rusted blinds that are listed in the inspection). There was no ownership taken for the mistakes that were made, no real apologies, no discounts to rent, and we were never made to feel like our concerns required any sense of urgency. Just excuses such as "it was missed while our cleaner was on vacation". If the cleaner is on vacation and you have a tenant moving in, why would you not hire some else to take care of it like you expected us to do when we moved out?
Ultimately, it comes down to a lack of professionalism and attention to detail. All the issues that we had upon arrival could and should have been avoided by following up on properties and actually fixing issues and cleaning before tenants arrive. This is further illustrated by you replying to our review and trying to discredit it by calling it "dishonest", rather than taking ownership of the fact that Command Property dropped the ball and maybe trying to reach out to ask what your company could do in the future to provide a better experience for your clients. Looking at the other reviews from other past tenants, this might be something that you consider.
We do not like to leave negative reviews, but feel it is our obligation to warn others about the way the way things are handled by Command Property before they move across the country and face these issues. With the attached email receipts, prospective clients can make up their own mind about who is being honest or dishonest in this exchange. read more