Roanne Flora Landlord Berkeley Springs West Virginia

May of 2015 two friends and I rented an apartment in Berkeley Springs, WV. It was our first time out on our own and we were all very excited and naive. It's a small town, so it was easy to contact the landlord for one of the few apartments available in town. We set up a meeting with her, viewed the apartment and within about a week we had signed a one year lease and moved in. 

Our rent was 750 a month, with a 750 dollar deposit, for a 2 bedroom apartment in a no-name town in West Virginia. A year older and wiser, I realize this place wasn't worth the price but between three of us it was managable. The apartment came with a fridge, washer and dryer and a few small pieces of furniture here and there. What we didn't want to keep (such as matresses and dirty couches) we told her about and she said she would have them removed. 

Come move in day, half the stuff we wanted taken away was still there and she told us to just get rid of it ourselves. On our lease is a very specific list of items that were included in the unit and beside the things we had removed are her initials. Once we moved in, things were great for a while. She was non-intrusive and though it took her a while to get someone out to fix the light above the sink it wasn't the end of the world and we made do. 

Fast forward to winter and we had a giant snow storm. The building was ancient with an old metal roof so the few feet of snow we got in the winter of 2016 took its toll on the structure of the building. One day we noticed water dripping from the ceiling in the kitchen. We immediately contacted Roanne and did our best to contain the leak. Hours later she responded, only worried about us putting a tarp down to protect her precious kitchen floor. By this point the little panel in the ceiling had filled up with so much water it collapsed and fell on our kitchen floor. There was now a hole in our ceiling, mid-winter. It was weeks before she sent anyone to fix it, and even then it was just a crummy-patch job. 

Come May we definitely did not want to renew our lease. We gave her our thirty days notice. She kept calling and texting us, asking when we would be moved out. We told her our lease was up on May 31st so we would be out by then. She kept pressuring us to move out a few weeks earlier, as she had a tenant living downstairs who wanted our apartment and she wanted time to "have a cleaning crew" come clean the place up. However, we waited until our lease was completely up and moved out on the 30th of May. We sent her messages, letting her know we'd moved out, cleaned up and were looking forward to hearing back from her after she did her inspection in hopes of getting some of our deposit back. 

45 days passed, as the lease stated, and we still had yet to here from her. I personally texted her and asked her if she'd had time to get around to the inspection. I never heard back. A week or so later one of my roommates called her about it. She used the excuse that we left no forwarding address and she had no way of contacting us (though she had texted me the day after we moved out wishing us the best and talking about the inspection.) She said she'd be mailing our deposit back at the beginning of the month. It's August now and we just heard back from her. She said she's mailing our deposit this week BUT FIRST wants to know if we'd like to return the vacuum, crock pot and tv remote that we own. Though the place came with a TV, we left it in a closet and used our own as hers was old and outdated. We purchased our own vacuum and crock pot and are currently in the process of getting receipts for the items we purchased. 

If she does not return a decent amount of our deposit and continues to accuse us of stealing things that WE purchase, we are going to file official reports. She comes off as very sweet and laid back but in the end is only looking out for herself and is ready to screw anyone over who will let her.