Complaint Review: University Realty

I rented a garage apartment east of the University of Texas campus from University Realty. The apartment was located behind a small 2BR house. A utility closet was attached to the apartment, and the realty company explained that the washer and dryer were for the use of tenants in both units, the garage apartment and main house. The payment of the associated utilities was never made clear.

At the time that I rented the apartment, and employee of University Realty was living with her husband in the main house, and they did several loads of laundry a week. Halfway through the year, they moved out of state and another single woman rented the house. She was also told that the washer and dryer were for common use, and used them several times a week (as did her college-age son, who visited on weekends).

When I moved out and disconnected the utilities in my name, I discovered that the washer and dryer were connected to my account. I slowly realized that I had been paying for the water and electricity use of the tenants in the main house for a full year! This was not only never explained to me, but I feel that I was actively deceived as the initial tenants were employees of the company leasing both units! To add insult to injury, University Realty denied that they had not informed me of the utility hook-up, and denied my repeated attempts to recoup the expenses from the current and previous tenants of the main house.

This was totally dishonest and a very frustrating experience, added to by the fact that they swindled me out of most of the deposit. University Reality is a terrible company!

Jennifer
Austin, Texas
U.S.A.