DO NOT RENT FROM THESE PEOPLE!... One star is giving them to much credit!
We sold our house and are building a new one, so we were faced with having to rent for the mean time. We looked online, and we found Harmony Real Estate had two homes for rent down the street from where we are building, and were willing to do a short term lease since both houses had been sitting vacant for a long period of time. The house we chose and floor plan best fit our family of 5 for our 6 month stay, so we thought this would be very nice, convenient location for the time being.
Upon taking possession of the rental, we went inside and it was filthy! It looked as it had from when we first looked at it a couple of weeks pryer to renting, but even more dusty and had cobwebs everywhere. We were told that it had been cleaned prior to moving in, but the air filters where black, there was trash in the backyard and garage, and half the lightbulbs in the house had burned out. As I told the agent "obviously the house was not walked before we moved in or ya'll would have noticed, and you got ripped off by your so called cleaners!" We had replaced all burnt out light bulbs, and air filters and were refunded for the cost, but only after we raised a stink about it!
A few days into moving which was Jan '14 while it was below freezing, the Heater was not working at all, and after a month long battle and having to go buy heaters for our bedrooms, they finally got someone out here to look at it. The dishwasher was filthy at move in and we had to hand wash our dishes after running them through the dishwasher because it was clogged from the hard water! They replaced the dishwasher after about three months of complaining, and put in a water softener. The ice maker and water dispenser on fridge has not worked to this day even after reporting it, and we are now at end of our 6 month lease.
It's the "tenants" responsibility to maintain the yard... fair enough and expected! My husband did a sprinkler check, prior to running it, and It had clogged heads, a broken line in the front yard, and missing heads. My husband offered to fix it, but wanted to be reimbursed for parts and labor. Michael Hall (one of the owners of Harmony Real Estate) said he needed to get in touch with the investor first, and would let us know. We never heard back from him ,so we just hand watered what we could and tried to maintain the weeds with weed killer but was not easy in this drought and without the irrigation system working.
Just recently I asked him if we could meet for a final walk through at the end of our lease to avoid unwarranted charges from our deposit, and was told they did not do final walk throughs and the cleaning charge would come from our deposit. I replied to him ,that I would like a cleaning price list along with our move in condition form and reminded him of things that were never fixed that we have reported over the last 6 months, and were never fixed including the irrigation system. He then replies with... "Tenants are responsible for the yard maintenance and watering according to the lease and the sprinkler system was operational when we had the property inspected, so we would expect due diligence to be exercised with the lawn and the irrigation. You certainly can also supplement irrigation with hoses and sprinklers as needed to exercise normal care. Damages to the sprinklers and heads caused by lawn equipment are the responsibility of the tenant." OMG thank goodness we have all email correspondence with this man, because we will be ripped of on our deposit... Did I mention we pay $2195 a mo and have never been late?!
Storm from this past Thursday 6/12/14...Called and left him a message we had water poring from fans, vents, and lights, and half our roof flew off from the 80 mph winds. (which was all video recorded and sent to him) I had to call Michael the following morning, to check to see what time he could get here to look at damages as we were franticly pulling my baby's bed room furniture being soaked and moving boxes full of our belongings to be moved into new house. He arrived several hrs later with workers and they began pulling carpet, setting up air vents and making large holes in the ceilings to drain all the water. It has been 3 days with air vents, our two teenage boys sleeping on the couch, and our 3 yr old in bed with us, and now the AC is frozen with our upstairs unlivable for our children and it's 80 degrees in here and HOT!
Michael suggested we file a claim on my renters insurance to get a hotel because AC company couldn't be out till Monday after demanding he call someone to get this fixed! Are you kidding me? This company is a JOKE and has no idea the responsibility of 3rd party managing or being landlords!
Being in property management for 15 yrs, I would never recommend Harmony Real Estate even if it meant having to live in a box... I highly doubt the investor who lives out of state, knows the issues we have had! read more
