It's hard to know where to start, considering all the issues I had renting with Klatt Properties. The biggest problem boils down to extremely poor management. George Klatt was not only unpleasant, but he was manipulative, rude, pushy, greedy, and extremely disrespectful. I'll discuss the problems in more detail.
The first red flag that I should have paid more attention to were all the hidden fees George sprung on us the day we signed our lease. He originally promised that we would only pay for electricity, and no other utilities. Our lease demanded $15/month for sewer services, which George claims "isn't a utility", therefore he did not lie. Load of bullshit, but whatever.
I paid a monthly fee for a parking space, and my lease promised a parking pass to guarantee a spot. Parking passes were never issued, and although I always managed to find a spot in the tiny parking lot, an issue could have easily surfaced if a few more people had discovered the free, unmonitored parking there.
The internet is beyond awful. Sometimes it would be down for days at a time, and most of the time it would go down at least once a day. I notified George of the problem several times, but when nothing was done, I eventually contacted Comcast. They informed me that the business service we had at our building was not meant to work for an entire apartment complex, which is why it was so slow. They gave me instructions and reference numbers to fix the problem, which I passed on to George. He didn't even pretend to care and nothing was ever done.
If you live in a basement unit, get a dehumidifier. It's absurdly wet down there, and we had a major mold problem before I bought a dehumidifier. I'd be emptying up to 20 liters of water every single day when it wasn't the dead of winter.
There was constant turnover of the office and maintenance staff. At least the little problems we had were usually addressed in a timely manner.
Several months after moving into the apartment, a pest control tech would enter our apartment unannounced. This service was not in our lease, we were not notified at all, and actually our lease actually specified that nobody could enter our apartment without 24 hours notice. Later in the year, George would enter my apartment with prospective tenants with no notice. These unannounced entries were illegal and I submitted requests verbally and in writing for them to stop, though they continued happening for a long time.
When I finally moved out, George failed to send our security deposit after 2 months and multiple requests from me. My roommate and I initially split the security deposit, each paying 50%. Since we filed an official change of address, and he did not provide any of the required documentation, according to Urbana law, George was required to pay 200% of the security deposit back to us. Instead of doing that upon our request, he sent me 200% of what I paid and sent nothing to my roommate. That's not even half of the hassle with the security deposit, but it's the main point. I know he is still jerking around other previous tenants in the same way. Just another example of how he is greedy and manipulative.
Bottom line, find somewhere else to live. Period. If you do choose to rent with them, at least the lawyers on campus are extremely familiar with Klatt Properties. read more