James M. Gilson, Neil Purdy After renting an apartment unit for 3 years and never paid my rent late, I was ripped off for my $ 500 cash deposit San Diego California

I paid a $ 500 cash deposit in June 2003 to James (Jim) M Gilson to lease out a rental. During the 3 years that I lived there and despite the numerous Health & Safety Code issues, such as electrical wiring, gas oven did not work, wall haeting unit had no turn key so I was unable to lit the pilot, the roof leaked from the very fiirst rainfall to the very last rainfall 3 years after I moved in and 3 years after I brought this up to James (Jim) Gilson who was (is ) the resident proprty manager. he apparently fixed it, yet it continued to leak right up until I moved out.



Then the following summer I found the place had roof rats that were taking up residence in my kitchen by the hot water heater that was in a closet in the kitchen as well as under the stove, the sink and the refridgerator. I wrote a letter to both Jim Gilson and Neil Purdy (Property Owner) along with pictures of the large amount of rodent droppings in all the areas I mentioned. I followed this up with a phone call early in the morning as soon as I arrrived at work (7 AM) to make sure he understood this was a serious problem that needed attention. When I returned from work there were no signs that Jim had even been over to check the place or call an exterminator or call me to update me on what was being done to fix this situation. So I went to the store and with cash out of my pocket I bought various different rat traps, poision bait and poison bait trapss. When I returned from the store and went to check my mail I found a bag betweeen the hard door and the screen door. In the bag was sticky traps that Jim had left. When i brought this up to him and he said they were very effective, I told him I was aware of how they worked and I preferred not to have to deal with a live rat caught in my reidence and stock to a sticky peice of paper. I said if that was his preferrred method than if a rat was caught I would come and get him to handle it. His reply was that he would give me a shovel.



Then the last incident that happened approximately 3 months before I moved out the hot water tank in the kitchen burst while I was at work and when I returned home the carpeting was beyond wet it was soaked through and when I walked in the water started soaking up the leg of my pants. His solutiopn to that was a very small wet/dry vacuum with an inch handle no more than 2 inch nozzle to pull the water up with. Well I was up quite late into the night trying to get as much water uo as possible before it ruined everything I owned. He told me he brought some old towels over so I could lay them on the carpet to help soak up some of the water, and that he would exchange my broken hot water heater with the one from the laundry room (which he did). But he never brought blower fans over to dry the carpeting, nor did he use anything that would prevent mold and mildew, he didn't even pull the carpet back to take the underneath padding out, let alone replace it, why should he if he did not even bring in blower fans or call a company to come and suck the water out of the carpeting.

Well, I made it clear in the written letter to vacate on which dates the apartment would be available for him to come over and do a walk through, and since he lived one unit over and acroos from my unit (and we are talking a matter of a few feet apart in distance) I knew he would be and was fully aware that I ws moved out completly because I was shampooing the carpets, I had all the windows opened, blinds pulled and doors open, and to add that his patio where he spends much of his time is directly across from the bedroom and he was in his patio at the time and fully aware.

I myself had no time and was actually delayed in my moving time because I ran into a few obstacles that caused not only a delay, but a last minute frantic search for a rental truck (the one I had reserved in advance had been given away and I wasn't told that until the day i was to pick it up, the car transport company that I had also reserved in advance never showed up to pick up my car as scheduled causing me another delay and the fact I had to do everything myself from packing loading , chasing moving trucks and transport companies down at the last minute, I did not have the time to walk over and grab Jim Gilson by the hand and personnally walk him over.

He was perfectly aware of eveything happening and had no intention of returning my deposit, because before he knew I was moving out of state and acroos the country he had mentioned 2 months previos when I first called him and told him I would be moving that I would not be getting my entire deposit back because of a cigerette burn in the carpeting, I had already stated in my letter to him that I would take any responsibility for any damage i caused and yes i did leave a rather large cigerette burn and 2 smaller ones. Well, after the hot water tank exploded and soaked the carpeting thouroughly and the fact that the unit gets very hot inside because it is closed up all day while I am at work and at that time I was working 10 hours a day and add to that a 1 hour commute there and back and to reiterate that the carpet was never attended to properly, the fact of the matter is whether or not the carpet was new when I moved in, and despite if it may have been a decent or cheap piece of carpet (it was a very low quality and low cost carpet in fact) or the fact that it had cigerette burns, he would need to replace it before he could rent the unit to someone else (that is if he has any busines ethnics and morals) and I should ahve been charged only for the cost of repairing the cigerette burns even though it was in need of replacement and not because I was at fault there.

Well to conclude this complaint I called him from my new residence which happened to be in upstate New York and he went on to tell me while laughing the entire time that I wasn't getting a deposit returned and then proceeded to lie and say that I left a closet door mirror broken and junk in the patio, I asked him why he was lying and he just kept laughing, he would not talk to reason and his constant lauhging when he kept repeating the lies over and over until I was so frustrated I satred to cry and continued to ask him why he would lie about these things when he knew it was not true. And I had a friend with me on the last day because he is the one who came over to shampoo the carpet and take any belongings that he had loaned me and to take the olants and other items I had in the patio.

And previous to that i had 2 men and 1 women come by and pick up everything in the apartment forfree if they agreed to take it all including the things no one would want. I have proof of this because I place the ad on Crigs list in San Diego and we emailed each other as well as telephoned, so there are records of my listing as well as the people who responsed with their email addresses and telephone numbers. An dsince I was calling him on his cell phone there will be logs of the call we made back and forth on his cell phone statement or call logs. So I have witnesses to attest to what I am saying where as he only has the power to do this because he knows there is nothing I can do about it being across the country and fully aware that I cannot retain the services of a lawyer or whatever else avenues i might be abe to take to have my deposit returned because the cost would most likely be higher than the actual deposit itself. And I already checked those avenues also.

So I am suppose to let this guy just take my hard earned monry after I paid my rent on time each and every month I lived there for a total 3 years, never called a health inspector over to inspect the unit I was residing in knowing very well it would reult in violations. And what about the next tenant or the the tenant before? How many times is this low down character going to continue to get away with this. I have photos on CD, I have witneses and I speak the truth. I just canot sit here any longer and not feel I at least tried everything possible to get back what was rightfully mine and knowing that I cannot do this myself my frustration and disbelief over this whole situation has made me do the one thing I am able to do and that is write this report abd hope maybe somebody living there or who knows someone living there will enighten them by showing them this report. ThANK YOU.

Orinda
Baldwinsville, New York
U.S.A.