We hired Pickett to manage our home for 9 years as a military family that thought we might get to move back to the area, and we stayed with them about 8 years too long. Our business relationship started ok but got progressively worse until they ultimately cost us about $30 grand in unpaid tenant repairs and bills.
To start, Pickett regularly alienated nearly every tenant they placed in our home. One set of tenants hated it enough that they even abandoned the home without saying a word to Pickett mid-lease after transferring all utilities out of their name so that they defaulted back to us as the owners. Pickett refused to recover any costs incurred by us above the security deposit, but they still made sure to collect their full monthly fee from that deposit while it was empty. They even wrote on the statement "Tenant still owes owner $2794.50."
The only tenant that stayed in the home for more than 1.5 years caused enough pet damage to cost us about $25,000 out of pocket to repair it. We had to have every carpet replaced and every wall repainted to remove the pet smells. Pickett didn't even discover the damage themselves. A third party that entered the home had to report all of the issues including unauthorized pets that were explicitly forbidden from the home in the lease due to my family's allergies if we were to move back in. Pickett didn't even bother to withhold the full security and pet deposits for this damage, and all they would say is that Washington is very tenant friendly if and when we could even get them to respond. They offered to have the owner, Kevin call us back to discuss our discrepancies, but he never called, and never returned any of our multiple calls when we tried reaching out to him. Those same tenants managed to destroy a fiberglass tub a year prior, and Pickett chalked that up to normal wear and tear and charged us the full $2,500 replacement cost.
Additionally, Pickett routinely violated their policy of contacting us before any repairs costing more than $300, and we would only find out when the repair payment was withheld from our next rent payment. They rarely attempted to get multiple bids for large repairs except on the rare occasions they notified us before they authorized the contractor to conduct the repair, and even then we had to insist on multiple bids. For the costs of routine services like roof and gutter cleaning, they didn't bat an eye if the company they contracted with one year charged double what we paid the previous year. When confronted, they would tell us that this new company is so much better than the old company, and we would be so much happier with their services.
Pickett has also all but refused to engage with our HOA's concerns in any meaningful way regarding required upkeep for years. As far back as 2022, our HOA has been asking Pickett to address trees growing over the roadway. Pickett charged us for three different landscapers to fix the problem, but Pickett never confirmed with the HOA which trees they were concerned with, so none of the landscapers trimmed the correct trees. It took 15 minutes for us to coordinate with the HOA to identify and trim the offending trees ourselves when we went to the home as we prepared to sell. Pickett could not be bothered.
Pickett was an incredibly poor steward of our home and money, and if the majority of our tenants are to be believed, they were terrible to rent from. It does not look like I will be stationed in Kitsap County again, but after all this company put us through in managing the house that we would have moved back into, I don't think I could live in it again without all of the bitter reminders of the time, money, and energy we had to spend on it because if Pickett's incompetence. I would not recommend them in any capacity. read more