I saw the Fox 4 Problem Solver story about Plaza Gardens. My fiance and I rented at Plaza Gardens for 1 year. We never even fully unpacked all of our belongings.

When we moved in, the office personnel were very nice. I asked them when we would do the walk around before we moved in. I was told that they "do not do walk arounds". They said they did not have the staffing available; it was all real casual and friendly.

Everything was fine until we moved out. I called and requested a cleaning list. I was told that they "do not have a cleaning list" and to leave the apartment "in the same condition you found it". Well the condition when we moved in was not really clean enough.
So being good people, we cleaned our apt top to bottom - if you can think of it we scrubbed it clean. We also had the carpets professionally cleaned by Chem-Dry (happened to be the owner of Chem-Dry that came out to clean our carpets).

I requested a walk around before we moved out. Plaza Gardens would not do a walk around for our move out either. I was shocked when I received my deposit refund. They were charging me for "replacing mini-blinds", "painting", "miscellaneous extra cleaning" and to "clean my carpets".

The mini-blinds and walls were in the same condition as when I moved in (except for the 1 nail hole for our kitchen clock). None of the mini-blinds needed replaced. The walls could have used fresh paint, but that is exactly how it was when we moved in. The apt was in the same condition (except cleaner) as when we moved in.

Plaza Gardens acknowledged that I had turned in the carpet cleaning receipt but said the carpets were not clean enough and that their staff had to spend several hours recleaning them. I called Chem Dry to see if they would talk to Plaza Gardens. The owner of Chem Dry said he would be glad to because he could not imagine what Plaza Gardens was talking about.

We knew we were right and had become convinced that this was not just a misunderstanding. It is still our opinion that Plaza Gardens was willfully trying to keep deposit money they knew should be returned to us.

After numerous discussions with Plaza Gardens, after hearing their many changing explanations, and after being spoken to in a very unprofessional (downright rude manner); we let them know that we were not just going to give up and go away. We filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and began exploring every legal means to try to get OUR money.

Finally a staff member of Plaza Gardens decided to do the right thing and refunded an acceptable amount of our money back - not all we deserved - but acceptable. Interestingly enough, this staff member no longer works there.

In any case, I am sorry to hear about all the problems everyone else has had with Plaza Gardens. When I saw the Problem Solvers report on them I was not surprised at all.

I do not know if it is true or not but I heard a rumor that the owner is planning to file bankruptcy and walk away from the whole thing. Let's hope for everyones sake he does. The apartment community - physically - is a very nice place. Unfortunately, the owner and staff of Plaza Gardens are not nice at all.

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