Dr. Faith M. Stone - Dr. John Stone - Storgin Partners Slumlord Rips Off College Students and Takes Advantage of Elderly and Disabled Houston Texas

Hello

We are writing to you as our last hope. We are both college students at the University of Houston and first-time renters. We needed a place to stay and fast so when a coworker us of a doctor who had properties around campus for a very cheap price, we were more than excited.

The first time we met Dr. Faith Stone (I believe that is her first name. I had to search on the Internet to find that.) She seemed more than nice. Being that she is a doctor, we trusted her even after our guts told us something was very wrong (especially after she tried to sell us an apartment with no kitchen).

We decided on a small apartment in a complex of maybe 12 units on Scott Street between Holman and Elgin. The exterior was of the building and the surrounding initially turned us off (in between a Pop-eyes and an abandoned car wash), but when showed the inside we felt a little more at ease. At first look, the interior looked newly renovated and desire able, but we soon learned after moving in that we had just entered a roach-infested hell hole.
Being young and inexperienced, we did not know the importance of a lease. When asked to fill out an "application", I was given what seemed to me as more of a questionnaire inquiring about my personal life and a statement saying that I do not use or sell illegal substances. There was no lease agreement. I gave Dr. Stone's father payment in form of a check, but was told from then on to only pay with cash.

After nagging Dr. Stone about the key for days, we were finally ready to move in, but could not because of electrical problems. She also neglected to tell us that no refrigerator would be provided and we had to beg for her to give us a stove. The stove was old and she said that if the stove broke we would have to buy another one ourselves. We called Reliant to turn on the electricity, but it was not coming on. We called Dr. Stone to notify her of the problem, but she said we needed to talk to Reliant. After days of going back and forth, she finally got a "maintenance" man to "fix" the problem, but the power kept going out at random times and we would have to shut the breakers off and turn them back on to get the power back on.

The apartment was convenient so we bared its inequities.

However, the real disaster was after Hurricane Ike. The day after the storm, according to neighbors, Dr. Stone was seen trying to show an apartment to rent to two women. She didn't ask if any one had been injured or if there was any damage to the property. They told us that she showed them the apartment, which they declined to rent because they felt 450 dollars a month was too much, and drove out of there without saying a word. We tried to call the office where we turn in our rent (which is also where she practices medicine and rents property) and her cell phone many times after the storm, but the phone at the office just rang endlessly and the cell was off. We called information and got the number to her father's office and left a message, but it was never returned. We were told Dr. Stone returned days later and a neighbor, an elderly woman who has been living there for over 30 years, informed her of our damage after informing her of her own soaked apartment. Dr. Stone merely replied that we never talked to her and she didn't know, even though we had taken our carpet out and placed it in front of our apartment for all to see. Still, she left no way of contacting her or left any note of reference to our damaged apartment.

We figured we would have to make her come to us so we withheld rent and sure enough she found a way to contact us. Eight hours after our rent was due, she called us and left a message saying that the rent was not paid. So two weeks after the storm, with unanswered telephone calls, she mysteriously finds a way to contact us My girlfriend told her we would not pay rent if she did not start to fix our apartment and that we had tried to contact her many times. She told us she would evict us if we not pay and to leave the rent money, a key, and a list of damages at the office. My boyfriend and I did not trust her and did not want to pay her because of previous dealings with her, but we gave her over half the rent along with the key, a list of damage, and a letter promising to pay the remainder when work was done and telling her not to put the moldy carpet, that she had spread out to dry, back in the apartment. The next day, we didn't receive a receipt, only an eviction notice (rent was due on the 25th and we paid over half on the 28th and attempted to pay the rest on the 30th. We have always turned our rent in on tome since we have been living here) so we called the city and they informed us to pay the rent if we wanted to have any kind of case. The very same day, we went to the office to give her the rest of the rent and she informed us that she was told not to take it by the management and that she only helps out with the property and is not management. Discouraged, we went to get a money order hoping to have some kind of proof we tried to pay her so we would not have to leave until we could get into our new apartment.

When we got back from putting a money order into her mailbox for the rest of the rent; there was a crumpled receipt saying we had paid the rent already in our mailbox. The moldy carpet we set outside that she spread out to dry had mysteriously vanished. Maybe she realized we still had renter's rights even if we did not have a key.


Dr. Stone took advantage of us being young and has caused much distress to our lives. If you do not expose her for who she really is for our sake, please do it for the disabled elderly woman, Mrs. Battle, who is afraid to speak up after being left in a moldy apartment for two weeks, the disabled couple next door, who also will not speak up, and any other students who might go through this if nothing is ever said.

The seventy year old woman who lives here has been here for thirty years. She has no voice, so we will speak up for her. She has no family and her husband has passed and we feel as if it is our duty to help her. They have taken her wall out because there was furry black mold growing all over it and left her there while they keep promising that work will be done promptly.

We have found a new apartment but we want to help the people who are still left.

We have just recently found out that the complex had central a/c but when it went out, the management refused to fix it and now has everyone using window units and space heaters.
We also found out that the woman who used to own the property warned Mrs. Battle, the seventy year old disabled woman, that the new owners were not like her and she was definitely right.

They do not exterminate, which is ridiculous because the complex is next to Popeyes and roaches are everywhere. We had to spray Bengal everywhere yet a roach still managed to crawl across my girlfriends face and into her bosom when she was asleep. When tenants complain of problems, they are simply ignored. Texas law requires that if you do not have a lease agreement, checks have to be accepted, yet Dr. Stone refuses to take them.

We have researched Dr. Stone and learned that her mother, Mrs. Halliday,was granted property all over Houston when her mother passed. We are sure that these properties are all equally terrible and she is taking advantage of anyone she can. She only cares about her money and nothing else. In fact, we heard someone had offered to fill the holes in our parking lot with asphalt for free and Mrs. Halliday, the owner of the properties called the authorities on him and refused to let him fill the holes. Now the asphalt lies around the back of the complex with grass growing all over it.

We still do not have a working number to reach the management and Dr. Stone's phone has mysteriously stopped working. Mind you, that Dr. Stone is a doctor and so is her father, so she not having a phone seems quite fallacious. The office where we are supposed to call them is only open from 10 am to 2 pm and closed on Wednesdays. The have yet to answer a phone call yet. Dr. Stone claims she only helps out the management and does not even admit that her mother is the owner of these properties. We asked another one of the tenants that lease out of their office building on 5511 Austin St. who the manager of the leasing office is and they told us it was Mrs. Halliday, now isn't that something. Something fishy and illegal is definitely going on here and we need help.

If all of this isn't evidence of this family's lack of compassion for people, I don't know what is. And to think that these people are supposed to be doctors, they pledged to medicate and serve their fellow man, yet they continually abuse their power over others.

Can you please expose this woman and show my girlfriend and me that there are still good people left in this world.

L'minou
Missouri City, Texas
U.S.A.