Complaint Review: Waypoint Homes - Nationwide

I've lived in a Waypoint house for two years and they are awful in every single way a landlord can be awful. Let's start at the beginning. They bought the house at auction and according to our neighbor it had been empty for six years. They have this policy when you move in, the "Tune Up" which basically means you move into the house and find all of the stuff that's broken for them. Okay so we do that, the hot water heater doesn't work, some electrical outlets that don't work, closet doors that don't open, there's a leak over the oven and on the back porch, the outside lights don't work, there's a dead tree in the front yard where there's a 15 foot, 10 inch diameter branch literally hanging from vines from the tree in the front yard. Not connected to the tree AT ALL...hanging vertically, plainly obvious for them to see. Plus a bunch of other stuff broken.

We submit all these issues. They come out eventually and fix the hot water heater and attempt to fix the roof (it still leaks). The other stuff they never fix. We contacted them repeatedly, especially about the tree branch because if it fell on someone it would maim or kill them. Sometimes they say we'll have a contractor contact you, sometimes they don't reply at all and they don't return phone calls. A contractor never contacts us. After a while we just gave up and lived with the problems.

So a year passes and it's time to renew our lease. Now believe me if it was at all possible to leave we would have, but we can't. So they send us the new rates. It's a 5% increase from the previous year which surprised me because their rates are already 25% above the market rate for our neighborhood. But whatever, so we get the new lease and it lists all these different fees so I call the lease lady, Judith Ordonez, at the local office and she tells me that those fees are not due, they are from our original lease and the monthly rent will be a TOTAL of $XXXX and pet rent is included in that amount and all the other fees don't apply. I exchange several emails with her about this to make sure what we will have to pay. I am assured by her in writing that the total monthly rent will be $XXXX. So we sign the lease.

Six weeks later we get a letter saying that we owe them additional pet rent every month. I call Judith Ordonez again and plus we exchange emails about this because the $XXXX amount is written on our lease as the total and pet rent is written as $0 and we were also told this by her in writing. And now they're saying we owe more. While on the phone Judith Ordonez tells me to tell Waypoint we no longer have pets... ummm, no I'm not going to lie and risk eviction. I asked her about 10 times on the phone and in email to have the manager Christy Holloway to contact me so we can get this sorted out. I called the office asking to speak to the manager several times and she was never available and never returned my calls. I wrote several emails to the manager Christy Holloway. I never got one response from her.

Okay now back to maintenance issues.... 18 months after we moved in a huge branch fell off of the same dead tree that has had the giant branch hanging vertically from vines. The branch took up my entire front lawn, I couldn't even cut my grass. We call the maintenance number and they tell us they'll have a contractor come look at it... I've heard that before. I had to call their maintenance number for two months until they finally came out and cut the tree down. So 20 months after we first reported the tree, they finally dealt with it.

Now back to the lease... today we receive a threat to evict us if we don't pay the additional pet rent amount that's accrued. I'm calling a lawyer. It clearly says on my lease the pet rent is $0 and the total due is $XXXX. It's not my fault if they screwed up their own lease. I could go on and on but I'm tired of writing. Do not rent from them if you value your life. limb, property, money, and sanity.