Complaint Review: Balfour Beatty

My husband joined the military during our third year of marriage.  We had rented before, and rented two other places before our name came up on the Balfour Beatty move in list.  We moved in because utilities were supposed to be paid for and it was close to his work.

We moved in and there were roaches everywhere, and ants.  The backyard looks like a giant children's sandbox, and the actual 3 bedroom unit was extremely small, maybe 750 sq ft at best.  We were also told that we were not allowed to view the unit, floor plans, or anything else prior to moving in because the place "wasn't ready" and they had somehow lost the floor plans (despite it being identical to lots of other units, to which they should have had the floor plans too).

We had lots of problems.  Maintenance never showed up to fix any of them, not even the bathtub that was rusting out (I assume due to the age of the pipes, as it appeared to be a plastic tub).  We also had lots of dog problems that were clearly been against BB's policies.  They even said when the papers were signed on move in day that "we already know about your neighbors dog situation" and basically, don't bother them with it.  Well, the dog was starving to death.  It was a large dog, aggressive, always chained up outside (against the rules all over), with a chain long enough to get to my backdoor. 

Every few days we'd find the dog running loose as well, and it was no friendlier off of the chain.  So I complained to the community manager.  He said he'd take care of the dog problem as "a dog guy."  3 months later, nothing.  I wrote an email again complaining, saying it was their housing, the tenant signed their lease terms, and if they couldn't follow the rules they should not be there (they also were breeding cats, and smoking pot all the time.  Rumor was their child was taken away by CPS so they didn't even qualify to live there any more by my understanding), and if BB would do nothing, I wanted out of my lease because it was a hazardous living environment that they were allowing to go on.

There was also a lot of theft and crime going on.  Cars would get keyed or broken into, anything left outside usually got stolen.  This place made a trailer park look like a safe haven - and the rent was over a grand a month!  Meanwhile BB would make comments on Facebook asking questions like, if we community members felt like a stable for families that owned horses would be a good addition.  Our houses were old, molded, and in terrible condition and they wanted to build houses for something as luxurious as horses?!

Let me make a side note here that, out of six places I have rented over the years, I have never in my life had a penny of a security deposit withheld for any reason.  I get the place broom clean, wipe everything down, mop/shampoo the floors, and I go.  When we were clearing out with BB, I expected the same.  Instead, this woman came to pre-inspect our unit and flat out demanded a $200 cleaning fee, or she wouldn't clear us and then my husband would get in trouble with his chain of command for not being done with Balfour Beatty.  She claimed that we were responsible to paint the walls, clean out the air ducts, and do all sorts of unreasonable things that are part of a landlords normal between-tenant maintenance and these things I have never (not even when we lived across town in the same city) been told to do by any other landlord. 

There was no list of what needed done, no outlined requirements, it was "if you miss even one thing [and we won't tell you what all those things are] then you'll get charged for the entire cleaning crew anyways, so just give us the $200 and be done with it."  We were extorted and had no choice, as the employee made it clear that nothing we did would pass their inspection.  They even refused to show us where in our lease we agreed to have the air ducts cleaned when the place looked like garbage when we moved into it.  Even when we signed the lease they would not give us a copy of it!

As my husband was clearing they came out of nowhere and said that we owe them for half a months rent, because the BAH didn't go to them and came to us instead.  Well it didn't come to us, so I believe they are lying and conning again.  They keep calling and sending emails to set up a payment plan or they will send our "debt" to collections, yet they refuse to send us anything itemized or anything showing how they got that total and how we are the ones that owe it to them.  This non-payment for BAH doesn't even make sense, because we had to pay them for the first month when we moved in because that BAH had gone to us.  When we were moving out the BAH should have gone straight to BB, but they insist that they are paid in May for April's rent from BAH.  Then why did I have to pay them for our first month upfront?