I subleased a house in South Park from an employee of Ondo Rentals, Robert Severt. Worst rental…read more(and sublease) experience *ever*. Admittedly, some of this was probably my fault. See, I spent the last seven years in Texas, where a property with a non-programmable thermostat is all but unheard of, and the electric company advises you to install your own; so I installed a Nest in the Ondos' house, which Phil did not like one bit. Here is a chronological list of relevant experiences, good and bad: - Robert told me the house would be available in May, at the end of his lease term, before I signed his sublease. Subsequently, I found out that the Ondos specifically told him it would not be. Robert also told me the house contained an air conditioner (turned out to be a window unit, located uselessly on the basement floor). - Candi and Phil knew Robert was consistently lying to them, and also to a tenant, and expressed remorse. They were actually very kind about it, tried to find me another place to live. Candi then denied that Robert was an employee. - The house was very cool, but in terrible shape. Screen doors were ripped, the floors gouged and in need of refinishing, bathroom smelled of urine, the bedroom carpet was *disgusting*, paint was peeling in the bedroom closets, etc. Positives: house was huge, kitchen was relatively nice (updated), and furnace was new. The price was about right, but utilities were expensive. - Other houses the Ondos showed me were in *worse* condition and cost more money. - Once, I came home and the back door was wide open. Turns out my roommate was responsible, but I asked Candi if Phil had been over to fix something -- mainly because I wanted to know if someone had broken in. They took this as me accusing them of breaking into the house, and claimed that Phil never enters without calling the tenant first. - Eventually, Phil made me take out my Nest. He paid a company $174.90+ to put a non-programmable thermostat back in the house (where do you even get one these days?). Charging me $175 out of my deposit was somewhat reasonable, since I modified his house without permission, though it could have been handled better (like by allowing me to put the thermostat back the way it was myself). - In March or April, my roommate called in a service request on the dryer, which was turning but not heating. Phil came and looked at it (I was in Texas), claimed it was heating, and left. I returned from Austin to find it still not working, called Phil and left a message, and asked him to call me back and explain what he had done to make the dryer heat. - Phil entered the house without calling me back (contrary to Candi's claims that he always called before entering), again evaluated the dryer, made no repairs, and left. - Not realizing Phil had been there already, I called him again. He was more rude than usual, and then accused me of messing with the thermostat he had charged me to install (seriously?). He seemed to think I'd ripped out his replacement and put in a new non-programmable stat in its place (I had not). Every time I tried to explain it to him, calmly, he cut me off. He accused me of trying to screw with him by claiming things were broken that weren't (do people here really do that?). The conversation culminated with him calling me a moron. - The Ondos threatened to withhold my deposit until the start of next heating season (illegal under WV law) in case I'd broken the furnace. The heater was working perfectly at this point, and was likely going to be out of warranty by the next heating season, so I was skeptical. - I cleaned the crap out of that house before moving out. I didn't think I'd be seeing much of my deposit again at this point, between Phil the verbally abusive landlord and Robert the compulsively lying lease-holder, but I believe in leaving things better than I found them. - Actually, nearly all of the deposit was returned (minus the thermostat, of course). They charged me $10 for "three false service calls." For something I didn't do, $10 was pretty reasonable. They charged me $3.75 for forgetting to clean under the stovetop, also extremely reasonable. They also didn't charge me for pre-existing damage likely caused by Robert, except for the fridge shelf ($9.49 + $7 for gas). - The deposit return came through Robert, and so I asked Robert to also return me the $16.49 for the fridge shelf. That day I got a very angry call from Robert's girlfriend/fiancee, who said that they were going to give me the money but only because I was being difficult and they didn't want to deal with me anymore. To summarize, living in this house was miserable. Ondo Rentals employs a compulsive liar. Phil Ondo is verbally abusive and misanthropic. If you have to deal with them, deal with Candi, or with their daughter (who is amazingly really kind). If you don't mind verbal abuse and living in a slum, definitely rent from these people. And whatever you do, don't install a Nest.

We had a great experience renting from Ondo Rentals! We didn't see the negative reviews until after…read morewe had already signed the lease, so we were a little apprehensive when we moved in. However, it couldn't have been a better experience. Mr. & Mrs. Ondo were very nice, and the one time something broke (washing machine), Mr. Ondo was over the next day with a replacement. When we moved out, we did our best to clean everything to the specifications of our lease. We received our entire deposit back, less money to cover the oven cleaning (which I had let them know I hadn't gotten to) and one set of broken blinds (which I annoyingly broke the day we moved out). I think the key to having a good experience is to not act like an entitled jerk. Follow the lease rules, pay your rent on time, and report anything that breaks/gets damaged promptly. (I posted this in other review sites, FYI. I'm trying to counteract the poor reviews left by the immature renters who apparently aren't ready for adulthood)

I see a whole bunch of one star reviews, mostly focused on the issue of the security deposit. I've…read morelived in a Bel-Cross Property for not even two months, and have an 18 month lease, so that won't be my concern at this point. All I can say is I love the property I now call home. It's a 1904 4 bedroom 2 bath house with a basement, attic and double size yard. I have more deer for neighbors than humans and live less than a mile from downtown Morgantown. I moved in right before the sub zero cold snap. The house was cold and the gas boiler system couldn't adequately heat the house, but maintenance showed up with two space heaters I used for the unusually cold days. It go so bad I even had a water pipe burst, and maintenance was there in an amazing 20 minutes. I recently had a minor gas leak from my stove. Again, within half an hour I got help and everything is good as can be. So yes, it's an older home with some of the inconveniences and issues that arise...but Bel-Cross also compensates for that with on the spot maintenance. Previous to this home, I lived in a Morgantown three bedroom apartment that was supposed to be smoke free. I was probably the only non smoker in the building. I had to drive to the laundry room (and pay for every load), drive to get the mail, and walk quite a way to the garbage...up and down very icy shaky wooden stairs. So now I have a much bigger house, with my own washer and dryer. Mail is delivered right beside my front door, and garbage and recycling is at the curb. I also have three large off street gravel parking spaces to use that I share with no one else. And the rent of this house is $79 less a month than the awful apartment complex I lived in! So five stars so far, and I'm just not worried about the security deposit at this point. What's more important is does the property management firm properly manage the property?

Yes, the reviews are true! If you can rent from someone else, I would. They took my entire security…read moredeposit to fix all of the stuff that should have been fixed BEFORE I moved in. I had a leak in my roof for months before I could get someone to fix it. The rents are cheap for a reason, you are going to be dealing with issues.

Just wanted to add my Google review to the yelp reviews as well, since Google shows that more than…read morethe others. If you own properties and need management, I'm sure you and RBP will be fine. You can all be slumlords together. But if you just need a roof over your head and a well managed/communicated rental situation, look somewhere else. (Lease 08/2024-07/2025) Squirrels, raccoons, and one cat in my ceilings and walls. I moved into my property in the South Park/First Ward area on August 1st of last year. I submitted my initial portal request about the issues present on August 8th. I messaged on October 19th after the animals in my ceilings didn't get any better, and another maintenance team was sent on December 3rd. After they sealed one hole on the right side of the building, I asked what the next steps were to remove the animals, and my request was closed by Kourtney with no answer. On January 2nd I filed another request as the animals had only gotten louder. Critter Control was sent on January 7th. They expressed to me that previous work was very poor, and after surveying the property they left. I went to the Red Brick office on January 29th because I hadn't heard any updates since Critter Control came by 22 days earlier. Kourtney informed me that no one can help until March 1st because the owner was on vacation for the month of February. If I hadn't gone in-person I don't believe I would've been told that. On February 13th, a technician from XCEPTIONAL WILDLIFE named Matt came out to the property with Michael Dragone, who had been no real help up until this point, and I showed Matt all of the areas around the exterior and interior of the property that were heavily affected by the animals. He laughed at the previous work and informed Michael that the work needed was going to cost a lot. After they got full permission to do what they needed to do, work was finished on March 7th, 7 months after my first portal request. All the while that this had been going on, a crack in my kitchen ceiling had been progressively getting worse until it eventually sprung multiple leaks of dark brown/black, rotten liquid. The crack was covered with a "bandaid." The liquid is already visible in the paste spread over it. I submitted one final message to update Red Brick, and yet another group is being brought in to fix issues that were missed by other maintenance because, though the sounds are MUCH more scarce now, there's still activity above my kitchen by that crack in the ceiling. I've been very concerned about the structural integrity of this beautiful 1950's home, now triplex, and the way this situation was handled was so abysmal it was honestly disappointing

Amazing company - I have properties all over and they have been the best management company I work…read morewith. Quick responses, reasonable people, and it feels like they care, unlike other PMs I have dealt with

Many issues with maintenance and communication. We felt as if we had to badger to get anything…read moreadequately fixed during our stay (some things were never fixed during our year there). We were told the rusty fridge would be replaced and that it just needed ordered and we'd have to wait for shipping, but it was ordered until our freezer started kicking the bucket. The biggest concern was when our leaking ceiling was brushed off, and it caused a mold scare. Highly suggest looking elsewhere. We had immense stress living here.

I hired them to manage my rental. Paul seems very nice but no follow through with tenants after I…read moreasked him to check on a few issues. Once I decided to sell my property the office became less than helpful and extremely slow to return calls. They were not happy I did not list it with them and it showed. Ended up doing the walk through myself and ended up having to do all the dealings with the renters from that point on.