Complaint Review: Lance Roderick Cleaver

My ex-wife was renting a house in Spreckels California for approximately ten years from an individual named Lance Cleaver. Spreckels is located in a very desirable school district which was her main motivation for wanting to move there. We wanted our child to have the benefit of the best education the area could provide.

She ended up renting a two bed / one bath house which happened to be the ugliest home in the community. Badly peeling paint, tall weeds, a huge pile of old lumber and rotting building materials, partial remnants of an old house and a poorly built shed. Mr. Cleaver said the house would be repainted within a month. That never happened. The back yard was never a safe enough place for our child to play due to all the hazards. The house also had no heat and when my ex-wife mentioned this to him he came over and lit the pilot on the old floor furnace but the power company turned it off saying it was extremely unsafe because it emitted dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. When he found out the power company had tagged the furnace he became furious and ordered my ex "not to ever contact the power company regarding the furnace" and he re-lit  the pilot again. We contacted the power company again and they quickly turned it off again. Later when she mentioned the no heat issue Mr. Cleaver delivered a small, rusty space heater with a flimsy extension cord spliced onto it saying, "here's your heat". We threw it away because it was useless and unsafe.

Once or twice a year Mr. Cleaver would show up unannounced and throw commercial fertilizer and weed killer around the property. Then he would prune the heck out of the trees in the yard and leave the mess of at least a couple of pickup loads of waste just laying there for us to deal with. He would also come over at random times and turn on a sprinkler to water the lawn (even though it didn't need it) and just  leave. I kept the yard very tidy for my ex-wife but Lance Roderick Cleaver continued his strange behavior throughout her tenancy.

Shortly after moving in she noticed the floor was rotting under the toilet in the bathroom. She kept notifying him of the problem at the beginning of each month and finally after at least six months he came over and ripped out the floor and sub floor and replaced it with small pieces of plywood, leaving half inch gaps between them. That was his solution. No floor covering, just a poorly constructed PLYWOOD floor. Her mom paid a handyman to install new vinyl flooring. I witnessed Mr. Cleaver do many sub-standard construction and plumbing repairs throughout the ten years my ex lived there. In fact I ended up doing many of the repairs in the unit myself because Mr. Cleaver could not be relied on to do them and when he did it took him days and the work was NEVER done properly. I am employed as a building maintenance manager so I know what I'm talking about.

When she decided to move to larger, nicer place in the same neighborhood she gave him thirty days notice. Twenty days after giving notice he changed the locks, damaged her remaining furniture and told her she owed him a refrigerator because many years earlier he invested $125 for an old unit which my ex also contributed $125. They split the cost. The refrigerator eventually died and my ex-wife bought a new one. Mr. Cleaver expected the used appliance to last indefinitely I guess and has expressed his unhappiness by throwing a fit of rage stating to my ex "I expect you to replace that refrigerator!". He has also withheld her deposit claiming that she owes $3000 in unpaid rent which is simply a lie. This guy is the strangest creepiest character I've ever encountered. He once proudly stated to me that he is known as a "slumlord".He owns other properties and many of his previous renters have similar stories.

There are too many other incidents to list. These are just the tip of the iceberg. The unit my ex-wife lived in has been tagged as unsafe by the local fire company and power company. Mr. Cleaver ignores the complaints and seemingly suffers no consequences. If you're ever looking for a place to rent and find that Lance Roderick Cleaver is the owner of the property you're interested in, run in the opposite direction of this ghoul.  It's not worth it.