Complaint Review: Erin Cureton - Medina Ohio

I rented an Akron home with Cureton Property Alliance from 2013-2014.  I definitely was the one to push for a rental agreement and included addendums to cover special refundable lump sum pet deposit.  Erin Cureton did not insist on cash, however, the rest of my experiences were very similar to the tenant who filed the previous complaint.

Erin Cureton has very charismatic personality but has no problem letting you know that he does not want to hear from you.  

Overall, I consider myself a model tenant who paid many things up front and well in advance of the deadline.  However, the house that I lived in was very old and neglected - outside of a few cosmetic changes made by the landlord to attract younger professionals - and many issues came up throughout the time that I lived there that he was less than responsive to when I let him know there was an issue with his house/his investment.

One primary example was that the chimney flue completely fell out during the time that I lived there.  He refused to fix it and I had the heat in that house fly ou the chimney during a winter when we had -9 degree temperatures.  When it came to springtime, I would wake up with birds in my kitchen.  At later points, I contacted him to let him know there was water leaking through the ceiling (and near a light fixture) and he informed me that he just opened a new pizza shop and didnt' have time to get to it.  

These were typical interactions with him - yet I felt it was important to be persistent but polite, while doing things like weeding the yard, mulching the flower beds, and fixing the windows on the front porch that were taken out by a former tenant (given that the porch had settled and it wasn't easy to return the to the frames, he couldn't be bothered despite telling me prior to moving in that he would do so).  

All of this was aggrevating but simply brought me to the point that I was ready to never be a renter again and buy a hone. When I gave him adequate notice that I planned to move out and was buying a home, that's when communications with him changed.  He made it clear that he was displeased with my timeline because it is more difficult to rent a house in late fall.  

We left the house in immaculate shape; much better than it was when I moved in.  When I reached out to Erin the month leading up to my move and several weeks after, I no longer received replies.  He finally reached out to me asking him to mail a key and a forwarding address.  A few weeks later, I noticed that my normal deposit had been returned to my bank account with no further explaination, however, the pet deposit was not included.  

It has now been four months since I vacated the property and I still have not received a reply about the pet deposit, including emails with the countersigned rental agreement attached.  I'm sure he takes comfort in being a lawyer and assuming that someone like me is not worth putting sustained effort into contacting him with increasing levels of formality for $625. but that is not going to happen. 

And like the other former tenant, I feel it is important to file these types of public complaints so to protect others who do their due diligence on who they rent from in advance of signing.