This Property Management company made me so very glad to be a homeowner now.
They were very professional at first--they knew the difference between a non-refundable fee and a deposit (there IS a difference! Many landlords will say they charge a non-refundable deposit, which, in itself, isn't even correct).
They showed us the townhouse, let me read the lease in its entirety and thoroughly answered any and all questions that I had.
Our gas fireplace did not work when we had NW Natural turn the gas on, and they said the landlord would have to call them/get someone certified to fix it.
TWO companies later, it was finally fixed. I guess that was probably not Alpine's fault...
With other repairs, they were quick and friendly.
When our one-year lease ended, we were afraid they were going to raise our rent when we went to month-to-month, but luckily they didn't.
We did have an ant problem in our kitchen, and despite safely spraying, they persisted. We asked Alpine to take care of this--and we wanted to make sure it would be safe for our cat to be around. The Maintenance Manager was such a d!ck and made me feel one inch tall. He basically alluded that bombing the house is the only way they would take care of it, and sounded likehe didn't care whether our cat was in the house or not. Eventually, we stopped pushing this issue, stopped using the kitchen, and just got takeout all the time. Eventually the ants disappeared during winter. And that was the time we started the homebuying process.
When it came time to move out, this is where they "earned" their one star:
We didn't have a copy of the move-in inventory (where you write down the current wear and tear before moving in), even though they said they would send us a copy. So we couldn't even remember what wear and tear was ours, and what was there previously (there wasn't much to charge us with, but I was being nit-picky).
We bought a house in June. We put in our 30-day notice so we would be moved out by July 31. We cleaned the house thoroughly after moving out the first week of July, and then CAME BACK and cleaned thoroughly again because it had been sitting empty for three weeks, and some dust had settled.
We had the carpet professionally cleaned, left lightbulbs for them to replace (we didn't have a ladder tall enough to replace the ones in the ceiling), and left the receipt for carpet cleaning in the townhouse.
Then there was the issue of the walls. We had installed surround sound speakers in one of the walls, and while my husband had spackled the holes, we wondered if we needed to paint.
So I called the jerky Maintenance Manager. He said we did need to paint over the spackle. Fine- makes sense. So we took a paint chip and attempted to have it matched by my paint-matching guru at the Gresham Freddy's, and could not match the crap eggshell white color. So we went to Lowe's, who made us a pint can to try.
Not only did the paint not match, I believe it made our situation worse. With less than a week left on our lease, we were now in Paint Matching Hell.
I called the Maintenance Manager to ask him what color they use in their properties. I assumed that since they have many units, the logical choice would be to have one (or a handful at best) of paint colors they use.
Not only did the jerk scoff at my assumption, but then made me feel stupid by even assuming such a logical thing.
We ended up getting TWO gallons of Ugly As Crap Eggshell White and proceeded to paint the entire living room two nights before our lease ended. And this is while we're trying to paint the house we currently own and longing to actually go to our new home and enjoy it.
We were finally done, the carpet was newly cleaned, so we called the Maintenance Manager to see when we could drop off our keys.
He told us to leave all keys in the house, except leave one key UNDER THE FRONT DOOR MAT.
I hope I am not the only person who sees so much wrong in this.
Not only was this townhouse in Gresham, but in Rockwood, where things like drug deals and drive-by shootings worried us every night (our street was very disturbing--it looked like suburbia nestled in the midst of trashville).
And our lease had not yet expired, so if anyone caught on to us leaving the key under the mat for this jerk, any damage done to the house would still be on our watch (and our dime!).
We thought we would be able to just leave all keys in the house and lock the door, but the Maintenance Manager made it sound like they didn't have a copy of the key.
Isn't that part of the requirement of a landlord--to have a key in emergencies?
Thirty days later, we got our deposit back--they had reduced it for: light cleaning and carpet cleaning. We had to fight them for every dime, and we still didn't get the money back for the "light cleaning" charge. This was a $1200 deposit, too.
Needless to say, hubby and I are glad to be homeowners now. read more