Stone House Management INC Nathan Smith FRAUD SCAM DO NOT LET HIM TAKE YOUR MONEY LAWSUIT WAITING TO HAPPEN LIAR Brooklyn New York

 THE MR. & MRS SMITH OF REALTY SCAMS (STONEHOUSE MANAGEMENT INC) AND LAM BROTHERS REALTY LLC ---> DO NOT GET CAUGHT IN THIS FRADULENT RENTAL SCAM!

Ladies and Gentleman the reports are true! Nathan Smith of "Stone House Management INC" is a fraud and the company is too!!! Do not allow him to tell you otherwise, he is a liar and a good one so the stories will flow effortlessly (The first guy to make a complaint report was on drugs and was crazy, since hes only had "one complaint" the asian girl must be a myth and I cant wait to hear what he says about me and my two other roomates!) Stone House Management INC is a company who advertises rooms for rent on major websites like Craigslist. I like many others, fell for this scam. LAM Brothers Realty LLC is the neglagent, irresponsible group who is responsible for stealing our money and renting an uninhabitable, hazardous apartment space. The building of the above claim is located at 127 Grand St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York 11249. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS, DO YOUR RESEARCH BEFORE YOUR MONEY IS IN THE WIND! 

My Story: In mid November, I found an apt for rent on Craigslist that was advertised under Rooms/Shares. It seemed like the perfect apt. It was a large room with a sunny window and even a private fire escape located at 127 Grand St. (Grand and Berry) apt number 12. I emailed the listing and set up a showing with "Alise Smith". When I asked Ms. Smith if she was a broker she said no she just worked directly with the owner which at the time seemed perfectly normal. I saw the apt the next day and fell in love. It was an older building and the apt needed a bit of fixing up but since I'm very crafty I was willing to put in some work. Originally when she showed me the apt I noticed the stove door was broken and the stove itself did not look new as it was advertised. Also, when I showed up to the apt it was not the same apt that was posted in the pictures. When I questions Ms. Smith about this she said she had a lot of rooms in the building and that the one in the picture had already been rented so she was showing a comparable one. I was convinced, convinced being the key word, that this was the perfect apt for me. I spoke with Ms. Smith after the showing about putting a deposit down on the apt right away to ensure that it would stop being showed. I was leaving for a Thanksgiving vacation the next week and needed to put the deposit in before i left. We were in communication the next day and I asked her if it was possible to see the apt agian, this time i wanted to bring my boyfriend. She said that was fine and her boss --> Nathan Smith 

After seeing the apt, we headed to the office where Nathan, my boyfriend, and I sat to discuss the terms on which I was giving over my deposit (a cashiers check to Stone House Management INC in the amount of $1,200). My mom had called me earlier that day and told me she was a little weary of the company because she did some research and saw a report about him. So, I brought it up to him when we met prior to handing over my money. He gave a very convincing preformance as to how crazy the guy who wrote the report was and how he has been in this business and never had any other compalints blah blahh blahhh. He swore to me they were not true and said he was counter suing for slander. After being convinced the conversation moved forward. Nathan said that I would give him the deposit to hold the apt until after I got back from vacation when I could sign the lease and give First and Last Months rent. He also said my "fix it" list (Broken bedroom window, matress and box spring from previous tenant removed and Stove door) fixed and a cleaning lady would arranged to come in and tidy up the place before move in. So we agreed to the terms and I gave him a check. At no point in time did he tell me the check i gave to him was any sort of fee or was non refundable. My boyfriend and I left the office and that was that.

Upon returning to the city, I set up a time to sign my lease and get my keys. The next day I met at the same office as before with Nathan and "Larry" who I was under impression was the owner. Nathan seemed in quite a rush and kept saying "Im late, Im supposed to close on an apt right now and I havent even left; Its 40 minutes away". However I still took my time in reading the papers I was signing. The lease seemed legit and everyone signed it. I gave them my first and last months rent (also in cashiers checks) made out this time to LAM Brothers Realty llc. I recieved my keys and headed to the apartment. Everything seemed copesetic when i got there so I left. The next day, I recieved a txt message from my roomate who had already moved in stating that she woke up in the middle of the night (around 1am) feeling nausious and dizzy. She smelled gas and called the landlord immediately. The showed up to "fix the leak" and said she was fine even though later finding out she had carbon monoxide poisoning and had to call in sick to work they said it was "fixed". A frew days after, on Tuesday Dec. 3rd, I moved into the apartment. I had been there for a couple hours waiting for some furniture to arrive when I was in the back bedroom and smelled a super strong gas smell. I was immediately on the phone with Simon (who I guessed at that time was the owner... I hadnt at this point gotten any answers as to his or Larry's title or last names if that tells you anything). About 45 minutes later, a shorter spanish man and the plumber showed up at my doorstep. The spanish man said he was "building maintenence" and was here to fix the heaters, remove the matteress, and fix the gas leak. So while two men took out the matress I stayed with the plumber who was investigating the leak. The "plumber" proceeded to open the cabinets take a look around and then told me there was no gas leak. When I and the building maintence guy told him we both smelled gas and it was obvious that there was a leak somewhere he decided to check it out again. He asked if I had windex and I said I just moved in but would check and see if there was any here from the other roomates. I opened the cabniet and all there was was bathroom cleaner. He responded "this will do". He then sprayed the clorox onto the pipe where the bolt was, looked at it for maybe 60 sec tops then told me again there was no gas leak. He tightened the bolt connecting the pipes, opened the windows and left. By this time I had other errands to run and I left for about 40 min, came back and the apartment still smelled like gas. The maintence guy dropped by to check on it and when I told him it still smelled like gas he insisted it was just because the apartment hadnt had time to air out. I called Larry on my way out and reported that it still smelled like gas. He told me to call Simon who again insisted there was no leak. So I left again to give it time to air out and would not return until the next morning.  

Much to my dismay I get a frantic txt from my roomate, this time at 2:30 am saying she woke from her sleep once again to an even stronger gas smell. She called Con Edison to come in and check it out. When Con Edison checked out the gas valves they said the gas levels were dangerously high and that the apartment needed to be evacuated and aired out. After the Con Edison inspector turned the gas off and aired out the apartment he reported that the gas leak was coming from the pipes in the wall and that the wall would need to be riped out and all plumbing would need to be replaced. He left a copy of the "hazardous condition" evaluation with us (one copy for us and one for the landlord). After bringing this to Larry's attention he carelessly responded with "There is nothing I can do until morning, I will send someone then". The morning came and no one came to fix the gas, and no one came to make sure my roomate was okay (or alive!). Oh did i mention the heaters that were also supposed to be fixed were still broken along with the windows and "brand new never been used stove" that was broken?

Throughout the next couple of days I was in contact with both Larry and Simon, who both even after hearing about Con Edisions evaluation, insisted there was no leak. Simon told me "I dont know when the gas will be fixed, I cant give you a date... A couple days. At this point I think it's best we just cancel the lease and we will refund you your money". I was devastated. I had already painted my room and was set to have my Ikea furniture delivered and assembled the upcoming Sunday however, since they could not give us a date as to when the leak would be fixed and all the other nonsense we were put through, i thought it best to just get refunded and accepted their agreement. When it came time to set a meeting time to return our checks to us (a 2 days later) I called Simon who informed me he had "changed his mind" and was not going to refund our money. His exact words were "If you want your money back speak with my lawyer and take me to court". Confused and distraught I did some research online about tenenats rights and called DHCR (New York's Department of Housing and Community Rebuild) and told them our story. The tenants rights rep told me that it was outragous that they were even trying to go to court because there were so many code violations they were making and that I should go to the courthouse right away and file paperwork documenting these peoples illegal activity, so that's what I did. By this point it was 1 week since the gas leak; Still no one had even attempted to come and fix the gas leak so the gas was still off, there were no working heaters, the windows were still broken and so was the stove. 

At this point I had all the information I needed on LAM Brothers Realty llc to take them to court but still needed to see how we were getting our money back from Mr. Nathan Smith. I talked to Simon who confirmed that he had two months and that Nathan had the other so I called him (Nathan), I txt him and basically it was the same sad excuse of a story. He said he was unable to refund my money because he didnt have it but he was going to talk to the owner to see if he would be willing to refund the fee. So again, we waited for a response that never came. Finally, through txt I reached him and asked him if the owner was willing to refund the money. He said I needed to speak with Simon so I asked "Is Simon the owner or the landlord" (All this time I thought Simon the same one who refused to give me his last name and told me to talk to his lawyer to get it even though he is the one with my money and I am a tenant of his, was the landlord and there was another owner) and he responded " its the same thing and hes not willing to refund you". Sooo wait. You mean to tell me this whole time you expected Simon who only recieved two months worth of rent to refund me for money that went straight into your pocket? ---> Yes ladies and gentalmen he did. So after playing the blame game my roomate and I decieded to play a little game of our own. Later that week we met with Nathan to "come to an agreement". We met in a public place (no expecttation of privacy in public) and recorded our little meeting. We agreed that we would recieve the 1 1/2 months rent back and take them to court for the other half a month and compensation for moving expensize, labor and delivery fees that were non refundable, and pain and suffering. In the meeting, Nathan also admits he never disclosed to me that there was any sort of fee that was non refundable as well as admiting that he rented from the LAM Brothers personally before and had to take them to court for neglagence and won. Also after we asked him to refund us our money he states "What do you want me to do, pull the money back out of my pocket?" NEWSFLASH NATHAN, THATS EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED TO DO! Furthermore he tells us that once he re rents the apt he will refund us with the fee the new tenants pay him, theres only one problem with that; The apartment cant be rented without the gas leak being fixed which is all we really wanted in the first place! We respond, " So your just going to let some poor sucker get themselves into the same mess we are trying to get out of?" He says, "Why do you care about who the apartment gets rented to" and that ladies and gentalmen is the exact reason why you should never rent from this lowlife scumbag.

After our meeting with Nathan and agreeing to recieve the 1 1/2 months rent and go to court for the rest, my roomate and I both recieved emails from Simon stating he had our checks ready one for 2,100 (my roomates) and one for 2,400 (mine) which to my surprise was the full 2 months rent amount. We were so excited he finally agreed to OUR terms.

This morning (Dec 15th, 2013 --> 2 weeks since the first of three major gas leaks) we met with Larry. Apparently, Simon (Simon Katz; After digging through thousands of public records of building owners I was able to figure out his last name), once again changed his mind. The checks were not only just for 1 1/2 months, the "surrender of lease" they were wanting us to sign released them from all legal obligations before the point of signing freeing them of any chance of being sued by us after recieving our month and a half back. All this "agreement" was was a sad attempt to pull a fast one on us agian. So believe me when I say I will make sure EVERYONE PRESS AND MEDIA INCLUDED will know about theese crooks and will hear our stories because unlike them we have morals and principleS that we uphold and stand by. We are not going to let them continue this trickery. Between Stonehouse Management and LAM Brothers Realty llc's no morals, no care, do whatever to whoever to make a dime attitude my roomates and I are left without an apartment, without our money, and without any explanations.  

HELP US IN OUR QUEST TO TAKE DOWN THESE CROOKS! LET EVERYONE KNOW THESE ARE SCAM ARTISTS, LIARS AND THEIVES! 

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FOR BROOKLYN RENTERS: BEWARE!!!!!!!

DO NOT RENT FROM--> STONEHOUSE (MORE LIKE STONECOLD) MANAGEMENT INC OR LAM BROTHERS