I'll admit that the locations are good, and if you know how to take care of your own apartment and can fix things yourself, it's not too bad. But that still does not protect you from the overall incompetance and/or underhanded dealings from this landlord.
Yes, we have had the same problems of messy apartment on move in, and things that were never fixed, so I'll spare you that. But Gabe's Place has tried to scam us and others out of a good deal of money, as well as violating Urbana city landlord laws.
6 months after signing the lease (and another 4 months before we moved in), they contact us saying that we owe them $50 for a down payment on our parking space, a fee that was not put in writing in the lease or parking agreement. It took us over 2 months to get ahold of someone with the proper authority to deal with this magical fee.
2 months after moving in they tried to evict us for failure to pay our rent. They put a note on the door (misdated so we were only given 4 days notice instead of the legal 5) while I was in the apartment, not even bothering to knock. When I called them about it, they claimed to have "not deposited our rent checks" and were sorry for the inconvenience. My bank shows my rent check was deposited on the 31st of the month before.
They have also routinely come into our apartment with no prior notice (Urbana law requires 24 hours notice with some exceptions, so beware), and never leave a note. I also recently found out that over Spring Break they entered our apartment and took pictures of our kitchen, living room, and my bedroom and posted them on their website without asking or notifying us. When asked to have them removed, they told us that they were completely within their rights to enter our place whenever they wanted and take pictures, etc. Additionally, just this morning a man entered my apartment to paint the door without even knocking first. The area itself is safe, but I sometimes feel highly uncomfortable alone in my apartment because I don't know who'll just walk in unannounced.
If you want to rent from Gabe's Place, that's fine. Just be warned that you have to stay on your toes at all times to make sure they don't take advantage of you. You'll have to fight them constantly for your own basic rights. Take pictures. Take lots of pictures. Cause apparently, they are too.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/05/2007
Yeah I agree with the painting the door thing. I woke up in the morning to find my door completely open and no one there. I understand that they had just painted it, but they could have done something to make it look like someone hadn't broken in. I've also had instances where I went to turn in my rent check (I recommend turning your rent check in person because then they can't accuse you of not paying, which happened to my room mate) and I waited in the open doorway of the office while the girls who worked there were talking. Then someone's had would reach out and take the check and I would leave. Not professional at all.

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