Complaint Review: Deem Realty

RE:  Deems Rental Property at 1711 Bayou Homes Dr. Galveston, TX where I lived from March 2011 to October 2013.

When I first moved into the duplex on March 2011, I took pictures of every room.  I saw “signs” of roaches and spiders, so I “bug-bombed” the place before I moved in.  The place was not clean; there was a film on the windows, the window sills had dead bugs on them and were dirty.  Some of the blinds were bent and askew, the carpet was unclean and had spots on it (the tenant who lived in that unit before me said there was black mold in the carpet, but Bob Deems claimed he lied, but now I believe it was the truth!).  The linoleum had spots that looked like they had been gouged and were peeling. 

Parts of the carpet were separating in the hallway (Bob suggested I super glue it!).  The oven had burned/scorched stains in it and the stove was dirty.  The ceiling fans were dusty and filthy, the counters had dead bugs on it and were dirty, the fixtures in the bathroom were filmed over and the tub had pieces of (?) in it, the toilet was not anchored properly, and there were spots on the walls, and the doors had daylight showing to the outside and needed some kind of weatherstripping...  I noted this information on my move in report.

Around May 2011 I was seated in my living room; my couch faced the south wall, when all-of-a-sudden, like a scene from Tom Hanks/Shelly Long “the Money Pit; the electrical outlet nearest me literally exploded… it had been covered with what looked like a paper cover.  The sparks flew across the wall into the garage, shorting out everything in-between, traveling into the kitchen to the north wall where I had my microwave connected, shorting out the plug and traveling across that wall to behind the stove and stopped. 

I was literally shaking from fright.  I frantically called Bob Deems and left a message.  Two hours later, he showed up with his crew.  One guy looked like he actually knew what he was doing and commenced to repairing the damage.  When he cut into the wall he said “Who wired this?  They didn’t do it right!  This wiring is all wrong… it is a wonder that anything works on this outlet!”  Bob said nothing!  The guy who fixed the outlet put a real outlet cover on that outlet and another one that was without one.

Sometime later, the pipe under the sink started to leak…I called Bob Deems and told him and we set up a time for him to come out… he sent a plumber seven days later (I kept a plastic bucket to catch the water)

A few months later, the power went off in the kitchen.  I called the Deems to get it back on, but went out to the power box to see which breaker had popped off.  When I opened the box, wires were every which way, nothing was marked, some wires had no cap on them… I could not tell which was which!  A neighbor helped me and I got the power back on in my kitchen.

Another time the toilet in the upstairs (occupied) unit started leaking; I had just bought paper towels and put them on the shelf just inside the garage-to-kitchen door… these paper towels and my toilet paper and everything that was on that shelf was ruined --I told Deem Realty and there was no offer to replace them and it took Bob Deems a full week before he addressed the leak.

On December 27, 2011, as I walked through the garage into the house, I smelled gas.  I walked inside and called Bob Deems and told him, then I called the gas company and told them; the gas company representative who took the call, told me to get outside and stay there until the technician arrived.  So I took my dog and ran outside and stayed there; the gas company technician showed up within the hour… Bob Deems showed up two hours later, after the gas company technician had checked out my report and “red tagged” the furnace. 

Bob Deems showed up and “b****ed me out” because I had called the gas company when mine and our Boxer’s very lives could have been on the line!  He threatened to have me evicted if I did not call him before the gas company and walked over and “yanked” off the red tag that the gas company technician had placed there.  I told him “before you leave, I want a CO2 detector installed… I don’t feel safe!  He laughed it off and said it was “perfectly safe”.  I kept the furnace off after that!  (later I found out that the gas company only red tags for a bomb or an unsafe line and that line did not have a “diaphragm” to keep gas from surging into that pipe… in other words Bob Deems endangered mine and my family’s safety by removing that red tag from that heating unit.)

When the weather turned cold, not only roaches came into the unit, I found a rat dead in my dryer pipe.  When the weather changed, the rats looked for any entrance and found one… there was a grate missing at the back of the house I asked Bob Deems to replace there when I first moved in… under the house was open into the garage under the stairs and I found a “rat’s nest” there… one even was brave enough to come into the house and my Boxer Tucson chased it out!  But the rats lived in our garage until my husband set traps all around… we caught a total of 12!  They ate some of the boxes we had stuff stored in the garage and I found rats droppings all over the place!

But the LAST STRAW was when their unit refrigerator started not keeping our food cold enough and my husband and I were getting food poisoning from it… I told Bob Deems and he told me I “didn’t have the refrigerator settings up high enough.”  I verbally and in writing at the office (a service request in August 2013) told them that refrigerator was not working and was leaking oil or something out of the bottom and it needed to be replaced… no one from that office even bothered to address said problem and I gave them notice I was moving in October.  I received an email from Karol Deems after I moved out, stating her husband Bob had “repaired the refrigerator and it was working fine”… that was after they did not address the problem while I was living there.

I feel that since I strived every month to pay my rent on time (sometimes I was late, as I was literally living from paycheck to paycheck, as I previously stated to Karol Deems and she had told me “we will work with you” and then turned around and took back her word, charging me all kinds of late fees and sending me “reminder emails”), that Karol and Bob Deems should have made the same effort to make repairs in a timely manner.  Since they did not, I am submitting them to you for endangering my life, for the place not being inhabitable (no refrigerator and rats and roaches).

Now they are saying they refuse to refund my deposit of $650.00, even though I left the place cleaner than how they rented it to me.  I just want my deposit back and for them to bring up to code, the unsafe conditions in both of their rental units.