Miami Habitat, Inc Karen Fernndez, Raffaele Schiraldi, Kerrie Griffin, Arnold Acosta, Jony Kusmiskiy Suckered in & ripped off! Miami Beach, Florida

My friend & I rented a vacation studio on 05/25/2011 from Miami Habitat, Inc. via leasing agent Raffael Schiraldi. The lease was signed by Laura (my friend). From photos provided by Miami Habitat, it appeared clean & accommodating. Upon getting situated, we noticed how dirty the condo was & bugs crawling.  Within the hour we discovered fewbathroom linens.  We called customer service rep Kerri Griffin to complain & asked to be moved & she said she would get back to us.
We also called our agent Raffaele to move us. We continued our day waiting to hear back from Miami Habitat & later arriving back to our condo to discover our electrical outlets were nonfunctioning. We again called Kerri asking to be
moved & were told do to it being Memorial weekend they had nothing available & would fix our problems by the next day.

Upon using the bathroom we encountered more bugs & a nonfunctioning sink that poured water onto the floor with use. Not realizing the wet floor at first, I slipped & took a fall twisting my ankle & injuring my toe. That 1st evening upon retiring we discovered there were no sanitary bed linens on the mattress to protect patrons from the actual
mattress itself. Health Hazard & so disgusting to sleep on!

By the end of day 2, they fixed a portion of the electric, provided more towels, but NO wash clothes or hand towels, could not fix the sink, never cleaned the condo, did not provide bed linens nor could they get rid of the bugs.  

 After many calls to Miami Habitat insisting they refund our money so we could find another place to move as the condition
of the condo was inhabitable, Kerri & Raffaele apologized for it was Memorial weekend & they could not take care of things until after the holiday, so Kerri agreed to refund our money the following morning on May 27th so we could find a place habitable to move to.

 Up until this point Kerri, maintenance man Arnold Acosta & leasing agent Raffael were cooperative & sincere in convincing us our money would be refunded & they understood we could not stay in the condition of the rental unit.  Kerri Griffin said Miami Habitat, Inc. would credit our money back & send us an email confirmation on the credit.  Laura & I vacated Miami habitats property on May 27th to move to a new location.

We never received confirmation before leaving Miami & called Kerri & she said the credit would be given after the Memorial Weekend when everyone was back in the office.  After many calls & excuses for not receiving credit back, my last call 6/09/2011 was handled by Karen Fernandez,accountant for Miami Habitat. Karen was hostile on the phone yelling at me saying that we were in Miami & should expect bugs, that Laura signed the lease prior to viewing photos of the condo & that there was no proof or complaints that the electric or other problems existed.  I explained it is not hard to make something appear to be something in a photo that it is not in person.  

 Karen  then asked me to send a copy of the complaint Laura filled out which I did not have & found out from Laura she didnt have a copy & was never provided one by Arnold Acosta, who arrived the 3rd morning 5/27/2011 to check us out. Arnold never gave her a copy but I was witness to her filling it out with our complaints.  I told Karen Fernandez to confirm with Kerri, Arnold, Jony Kusmiskiy who arrived on May 26th to repair the electric & agent Raffaele about the problems & they ALL denied there were complaints. Karen Fernandez informed me she had a form with my friends signature &
there were no complaints. If they do in fact have this then it is a fraudulent because I, as well as Arnold Acosta witnessed Laura filling it out & made sure she put in all the problems with the condo.  I have requested copies of the lease agreement, the release form & as usual, Miami Habitats says they will send it to me but never does.

 The above employees of Miami Habitat gained our trust through cooperation, kindness and the promise to refund our money. They then denied we ever complained when they had to actually refund our money. We had to endure 2 nights of filth, unsanitary bed conditions, bugs, partial electricity, bodily injury and they want me to pay them for this.  

I filed a complaint with the BBB & disputed the charges with my credit card, providing them with phone records of 30 phone calls made within a 24 hr period as well as a cancelation notice from EchoSign, where Miami Habitat requested my friends e-sign signature on the contract be cancelled erasing her signature.  Miami Habitats response was we complained of the condo being too small which was not the truth since they advertised it as a studio & we rented as such.  Why would we call 30 times for a small condo?  Obviously we were desperate to get moved out of this bug infested filthy place.