I recently lived in a property managed by Sadler Company on the Hill in Boulder. I spent two years…read morein the apartment and moved out because of work-related reasons.
Overall, my experience with Sadler was positive. I mostly interacted with Chris when calling the office. He was consistently professional and courteous, and extremely fast about returning my phone calls and answering any questions.
It would have been nice if they were willing to put more effort and money into the quality of the appliances and carpet, and would replace those more often, but its understandable that these things get more heavily used with the high turnaround of primarily student renters.
A few examples of my experience with Sadler:
MOVE IN
Upon move-in, the place was well-cleaned and free of major damages. There were minor imperfections, but overall as good as I'd expect for an older place on the Hill in a great location, just a block from The Sink.
CARPET
The carpet should have been replaced before I moved in. It had damage, minor stains, and signs of heavy use. I brought it up a couple of times during my tenancy, but I was informed that it was not something they'd replace. It sounds like they probably replace carpets on a schedule of some period of years, instead of as-needed.
HEAT
Once in the middle of winter in temperatures around or below zero, the pipes in the basement froze, burst, and our radiator heat went out. The maintenance crews came in promptly to fix the broken pipes. Although the heat was not restored for about 24 hours, they did bring us electric space heaters which were sufficient to keep the bedroom warm throughout.
ANIMALS
We had raccoons move into the attic, and being on the top floor, we could hear them moving around, fighting, making their home, doing whatever it is raccoons do. We called Sadler, and they in turn called in Animal Control who set up traps on the roof and patched the holes that raccoons were using to gain entry. They responded quickly and fixed the situation.
OVEN
Our oven had one bad burner on move-in. Eventually another burner went out, leaving us with only two. We called in and Sadler replaced the oven with a brand new unit. Awesome.
WINDOW BLINDS
Because the old windows in the place has metal handles for lifting the window which protruded out from the wooden frames, the blinds would get caught up while being raised, often snapping the plastic blinds. It would have been nice if they had fixed the root of the problem by selecting a different type of blind or changing the metal fixtures on the window that were the source of the problem, but instead the blinds were replaced with the same problematic version. I think they fixed the mounting after I moved out, but while I was living there this was a recurring problem. Annoying, but they did at least respond to the problem with a stop-gap solution each time.
EXTERIOR
Each year of the 2 I lived there, Sadler painted our deck with a fresh coat of paint. Someone graffitied our building and Sadler painted over it within days. The trees were trimmed, the lawn (if you could call it that) was maintenanced periodically and not left completely uncared for like some places on the Hill. We occassionaly had broken glass and trash scattered around the apartment, as happens in that neighborhood, but it seemed to be cleaned up on a weekly basis. Someone broke our glass front door twice and each time it was repaired within a couple days. In general, Sadler was on top of the needs of the building's exterior.
UTILITIES
Sadler managed and billed for utlities (except electricity). I was late on utility payments, sometimes up to two months, but was never charged a late fee.
MOVE OUT
I had to break my lease early and move out over a year before my lease was up for work-related reasons. I informed Sadler of this in advance, and they gave me several options. In the end, I was able to find a replacement tenant on my own and Sadler helped me transition the lease to the new tenant at no charge. This was nice, as some property management companies I've rented from have charged me early termination fees regardless of the situation.
SECURITY DEPOSIT
I was charged for cutting a screen to install an air conditioner, and for steam cleaning the carpet. Perfectly acceptable charges. The cleaning charge was excessive, in my opinion, at $356 for a 400 square foot apartment that I had cleaned before I left. I disputed the charge, and Sadler was immediately willing to work with me to bring the charge down to something that I felt was reasonable. Extremely satisfied.
Everyone has issues with property management companies. Things go wrong, you call in, sometimes things get fixed perfectly, other times problems linger. With Sadler, I experienced a mix of both, however the majority of the time things went smoothly and problems were resolved in a timely manner. I always felt that they had my best interests in mind and they treated me with professionalism and respect.
