We rented a property from Verde Real Estate in south Minneapolis from the summer of 2021 to the summer of 2023. Things were rocky from the start when we were doing our pre-move in checklist and found that the bathroom window was broken. It would not slide up and down and the top of the inner window pane would fall forwards into the apartment if it was not locked to the upper pane. We were told it would not be fixed and we were just stuck without a working bathroom window for the two years we were there.
The first winter we spent there had a 2-3 month span with no snow removal, but by the time they finally hired someone to do the snow removal there was nothing to be done about the inches thick sheet of ice that covered the small, four car parking lot, driveway, and small amount of sidewalk/walkway to the front door. The second winter was much of the same. Though they technically had snow removal people hired, they did a poor job and we wound up with a sheet of ice for a parking lot and driveway again. It was impossible to take the garbage out to the cans without risking slipping and falling and forget even bringing the cans to the curb for pickup because they were literally frozen to the ground because the snow removal crew would just stack the snow and ice up around the cans.
On two separate occasions in the two years, they scheduled maintenance to come to our apartment to fix things that we had not asked for and we were not informed of. They were items required by inspectors to be fixed, but they never communicated a time or day to stop by and take care of it. Luckily I worked from home and was there to have them explain the situation to me because I would have been livid if they had gone into our apartment without permission or advanced notice.
The oven was lifted up on wood blocks so the surface was even with the countertops and the fridge was in a cubby with a wooden lip in the floor directly in front of it. This made it impossible to ever clean around or behind the appliances and frankly I don't think those areas have ever been cleaned judging by the fact that the one time we were having issues with the fridge the maintenance worker showed up and couldn't remove it, so told us we were just going to have to deal with the issues.
During our move out inspection, the employee present was impressed with how thoroughly we had cleaned the place and even complimented how clean the floors were. This made us more than a little surprised when we were missing $450 from our security deposit for "cat urine smells." Our cat is still fairly young and has never had issues peeing outside of the litter box. More importantly, the two places where this smell was reported were the dining room closet and the smaller bedroom, both areas which the cat was specifically locked out of. We bought and installed a temporary gate to keep the cat out of the bedroom and the dining room closet was so full of stuff that she couldn't have gotten in there to pee even if she tried. Despite reaching out and pointing out the fact that the employee doing the move out inspection said there were no issues (and being the middle of the summer with no A/C in that building, if there was a smell it would have been noticeable) we were not able to get a refund on this wrongful charge.
There were a myriad of other issues, some that we brought up and some we did not deem worth the effort of trying to get them to fix. I would absolutely avoid this company in the future. read more
