American Management - Donald Zachman Landlord harasses family ripoff Woodstock, Georgia

In September 2005, my family moved into a rental home located at 105 Williamsburg Lane in Woodstock, GA. We signed a one year lease. Our landlord at the time seemed to be a pretty nice older man but little did we know what was in store for us. During our first week there, we noticed little red flags placed throughout the front yard.

I spoke to the next door neighbor and asked what they were for and she told me that construction was about to begin on our property. Our landlord did not mention this. I called him and asked about the construction and he told me he had just found out about it.He lied. The county paid him for a portion of his front yard long before we ever moved in, so he knew exactly what was about to take place.

During the next 8 months, our family had to endure noise from trucks, machines etc. We had trenches in the front yard, bulldozers in the driveway, tress were being cut down and my children had to walk to the bus stop around huge trucks, holes etc. The property became a dangerous construction zone. (I have pictures of everything). Not only did we have to deal with construction, we had to deal with our landlord showing up unannounced at least 3 times a week. I would look out of the bedroom window and he would be in the back yard in the shed. He would be at the house when I came home for lunch, he would show up at night, on the weekends, and he would enter the property without our permission.

We asked him to call us before he came over and that angered him. He told us that this was his d**n house and he could come and go as he pleased. Because of that my family had no right to quiet enjoyment of the property because he was always there.

After that, he began sending us frequent certified letters stating that we were violating our lease in different ways, and he kept increasing our rent because of these made up violations. (Our lease did not state any increases in rent until our year was up) I started asking the neighbors about him and I found out that he used to be president of the HOA and was kicked off because of he starting harassing other homeowners and sending them certified letter with outrageous fines for violations.

It got so bad that he tried to garnish my husbands wages for money he said we owed him. We ended up moving out in July of 2006. We paid our rent on time every month and we have the receipts to prove it. The previous renters told me that he did the same thing to them for 2 years. This man has to be stopped. He should not be allowed to rent to anyone. He took away our privacy, he lied about the construction, he took pictures of my kids without our permission, I've caught him running away from the property and speeding off in his truck, when he thought no one was home. He even attempted to increase our rent because we raked leaves and trimmed some overgrown bushes to make the property look nice. No one should have to live like this.

Lisa
Acworth, Georgia
U.S.A.