Consolidated Property Management Steals security deposit, provides unprofessional service Lafayette Indiana

I transferred to Purdue University and needed a place to stay. Got together with two other buddies and rented a unit from Consolidated Property Management, at Lindberg Village, for $395/month.

The problems started from day one:

We were allowed to move into our place at 2pm (EST). We received a call that day while we were making our trip down to Purdue (We live in Northwest Indiana) that we would not be able to move in until 5pm due to carpet installation. Irritated, we decided to grab lunch, and drive over to Lafayette to pick up our keys. We picked up our keys and went to our new place around 5pm. The keys did not work, they issued us the wrong set! We called the office, but everyone was gone. Finally, we got hold of Andrea, who said we can drive over to the office and pick up the keys. We drove over, picked up the keys, and had to go make copies for ourselves.

We drove up to the place again. Cigarette butts littered the driveway and the front yard, no big problem, but still irritating since none of us smoked. When we opened up the door, there were carpet shavings ALL over the house that needed to be cleaned up. There was glue in different spots on the Kitchen floor that took time to get off. We looked around the house and found a couple flaws, a few holes, some doors that didn't align right, and a piece of siding that was off the house. The garage of this townhouse smelled like a tavern. The floors had beer residue all over them, mixed in with dirt. The walls were covered with soccer ball prints and foot prints. The garage door insulation panels had holes all inside of them. There was a makeshift TV stand in the corner. The coaxial cable unit did NOT work for the house because of a wiring problem. Additionally, the garage smelled like a dead animal. The walls were definitely not painted. Andrea had promised us a fresh paint job and new carpeting. We found our garagae door openers, however, there was two of them.

We cleaned up the mess, reported the flaws, and I moved in officially a week later. I had the cable taken care of at this time by the installation tech. I began to open up the kitchen cabinet drawers to inspect and there was dropping inside EVERY one of them. I took pictures, cleaned them out, and started to notice a lot of gnats and bugs. I understood that it was summertime and that this would be normal, so I sprayed the entire kitchen down and let it air out. When I woke up the next morning, there was large black insects, all over the kitchen floor dead. It appeared that they have crawled out from under the fridge.

I called Consolidated and they had an exterminator brought out to our place to take care of things within a few weeks. At this time, however, it was to late -- I had moved back home and transferred out of Purdue University.

My two roommates stayed at the townhouse and I still continued to shell out money. I called the leasing company to speak to them about finding a sublease or what it would cost to do so. I had spoken with Andrea, who threatened me with, "You are obligated to your lease. You can sublease for $x (75-90, not sure at this time). You are still responsible for that person, however. You will pay your lease or we will pursue you. You could opt for us to advertise daily at [x amount of cost, $100ish/day]." She had me. I maintained my lease, making my payments each month ON time.

During this year, there was various issues where we were getting statements saying that they did not receive our payments. All of our payments were made with checks and were verified by our banks, respectively. Her excuse was that there computer system was slow and must have been acting up. That's no excuse --- I refused to pay any late fee's associated with my account because in fact, my check arrived a minimum of one week ahead of schedule.

Move out day finally came! My two roommates moved out. They were instructed to mail one set of keys back with the garage door opener, and that the other was to be left inside of the rental unit with a garage door opener. The place was cleaned, locked up, and we all went back to our normal lives.

In September, we were issued our partial security deposit. $45 for each person. We paid a total security deposit of $1000. They gave us a blank document page stating "$275 paint, $200 for 2-garage door openers, $2xx to clean the place, and another additional charge to professional carpet clean the place, which was $1xx. I understood the carpet cleaning, as to prevent the spread of disease.

However, I do not understand the paint job. This house was NOT painted when we moved into it. The garage was a complete mess. It appeared that this had been the previous party house, that we had to pay for. I sent her a letter back, stating my case. This was around September 27th.

I had my roommate call Consolidated to check on the issue. Each time Andrea was either out of the office, or with a client. Eventually, she had an office assistant call back stating "Hi, I don't know why I'm calling you, but Andrea wanted me to find out what you needed." This time, I called back. The office assistant informed me that Andrea was busy, so I asked if I could leave a message and that Andrea probably wouldn't call me back anyway. The assistant just kind of chuckled and transferred me to voicemail. I left a message to the effect of "This is Brian, I am calling about the property at [xx], It is apparent that you do not want to discuss these issues as you have not mailed me a letter back or returned any of our phone calls. I advise that you return this message at [my phone number]." She called back the next day, right off the bat in the message stating, "Brian, we DID try to call you and your roommate. We DID issue you a letter. If you did not receive it, we will issue another one. I also think we should set up a time to discuss the issue." I called her back within 24 hours and left a message.

Andrea called me back this morning and she started off on the defensive. She told me that the entire place was not clean, there were holes in the wall, and that she could've walked through it. She said it was our responsibility to obtain a walk-through with a landlord. She also informed me that had the place been like it was upon move-in, we would have gotten our money. I told her that the place was MUCH better than at move in, as it wasn't garbage and was taken care of during the year. This is when she became irate and began to yell on the phone. In response, I did tell her that I no longer wanted to discuss the issue and that she must mail me a letter of the charges. She continued going and I simply disconnected her because she continued yelling and would not allow me to speak. She called back and left a smart voicemail. She maintained professional WORDS, but her tone was standoffish and smart. She was trying to prove a point.

I am now caught in a bind. I recommend NOT renting from them because their places are NOT like they promise. The staff is unprofessional and has no idea what they're doing. They are GETTING AWAY time and time again with ripping off college students. They are banking that these students are just going to let it go.Apparently this is nothing new, there are other reviews on the Internet about this company that speak of the same thing.

Buddy
Valparaiso, Indiana
U.S.A.