Complaint Review: Elena Emmendorfer - Rochester New York

Elena Emmendorfer was extremely disorganized and discombobulated from the beginning.  We first moved in and noticed that all of the kitchen cabinets were not properly installed or fixed – most of them falling off the hinges and broken, but this was easily the least of our problems.  One afternoon, my roommate and I came home to find that we were locked out of the exterior door.  When contacting our landlord (Elena) she told us that she did not have a key, apparently, and would have to wait for the downstairs tenant to get home and let us in.  We waited for almost two hours, outside, for her to return and let us into our apartment. I was late for work due to her inability to assist us, and she did not even apologize.  As part of our lease agreement, she informed us that we would have 3 parking spots in the driveway.  The driveway could comfortably fit 2, however, she had also guaranteed the downstairs tenants that they could park their 2 cars there – so there were 5 of us trying to park in the driveway which was absolutely impossible and downright dangerous.  When contacting her about it, we did not get any response and she told us and the downstairs tenant completely conflicting stories – causing problems between the two of us, fortunately we were smarter than that and compared our text messages and were able to figure it out internally.  About halfway through our lease (or so we think) she changed her phone number and did not inform us.  We found out from the downstairs tenant, when she stopped responding to any text messages and we could not get in touch with her. 

She often would show up when she knew we were out of town and go into the unit, without telling us. Flash forward to when we finished our lease – she scheduled a final walk through with us, and then did not show up at the scheduled time and my roommate was there waiting.  Two days later, she texted us saying she was doing it then, without even giving us the option to be present! We asked her to reschedule so one of us could have the opportunity to be there, and she did not respond.  After two weeks of not hearing from her, despite my efforts via phone calls, emails and texts to both her and her husband – I received a portion of the security deposit (late) without an explanation of the deductions.  We had done a lot of work to the unit, and left it in much better condition than we received it and I even had a text message from earlier that month that stated the unit looked great with no damages, so I was not expecting any deductions.  I requested an explanation, and after nearly three weeks of no response to daily text messages, phone calls and emails – I finally got my attorney involved and she emailed us an explanation, stating that she charged us for not cleaning the outside of the windows of our 2^nd and 3^rd story apartment, and claimed that the kitchen cabinets needed to be cleaned. The new tenants were also moving in the day that we were moving out, so I know that they did not have any cleaning done in the meantime.

Since we did not have the opportunity to be present during the final walk through, it is more of a ‘he said, she said’ situation, and I requested that she provide pictures.  Again, she has not responded to any of our attempts for communication.  Being a working business professional, I am genuinely blown away by her lack of professionalism and general respect.  Personally, I would at least want to have a good relationship with my tenants (both current and past).  I am also a landlord and know what is considered normal wear and tear, and would not consider cleaning the outside windows on a 2^nd and 3^rd story unit to be part of that.

I would HIGHLY recommend that everyone stay clear of this woman.  She is not capable of being a landlord and does not have the skills necessary to stay organized or informed of her tenants.  From putting 5 cars in 2 parking spots, to being unreachable and showing up unannounced – she is the worst landlord that I have had in my 7 years of renting.