OK, I'll begin at the beginning. When we moved in, our apartment was ready for us, but the woman at the office would not let us enter the apartment until 1:00, which is what was on our lease. Complete power trip - nothing else can justify it. She also threatened to evict me because I was upset at her obstinance. Now on to the apartment. There were mice - several. Eating our food. The construction is poor - we could constantly hear the child who lived in the apartment above us, and apparently the rodentia had no difficulty harassing us from below. The basement looks like the Silence of the Lambs - there was once a furnace fire that I put out, saving the building from blowing up. Reynolds thanked me by taking all of my stuff that was in the basement but not contained in our miniscule storage closet (spare bed, futon, end tables, photographs, personal belongings) and throwing it away, claiming it was a fire hazard. His idea of "prior notice" was sticking a letter in my mailbox as he was trashing our stuff while I was at work. No phone call. Nothing humane. At two other times, the basement flooded, destroying the items that WERE in our storage closet (air conditioners, kitchen table, antique Christmas ornaments). In one case, the flood could not be avoided, but in the second, our items were destroyed by a broken pipe in the closet - in other words, they were ruined BECAUSE we were following his draconian orders. Getting maintenance work is nearly impossible. We had a rotting bathroom floor that took them 3 months to address. A year into our lease, he rented a neighboring apartment to a tenant who drove the families out of all three neighboring apartments within 8 months - loud (parties at 2 AM, cigarette butts everywhere), disrespectful (dug up my garden to plant his tomatoes, parked his friends' cars in our spots). Despite throwing away our stuff without permission, despite not controlling his rodent (and horrid tenant) problem, despite his horribly disrespectful staff, he still raised our rent after a year and ripped us off with our security deposit. Please, please, do yourself a favor. Do not rent from Reynolds. Look elsewhere - there are obviously better places in Waltham.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/02/2008
I used to work for him and alot of this sounds a bit far fetched. My biggest question to you would be why did you renew your lease for another year if you were so miserable? You state you lived there from 2005-2007. He gave tenants one year leases with the option to move at the end of each lease period. As far as him throwing your stuff in the basement away with no notice....that is not true! He was a stickler on giving tenants too much notice and too many breaks as far as I was concerned. He follows the laws and would NEVER throw away stuff without reasonable notice to tenants. NEVER! As far as you moving in at 1:00 on your move in day. The reason which I am sure was told to you was that tenants who occupy the apt before you have until the last day of the month to live there then you would occupy it the very next day. There needs to be time in between the transition to clean and do any preperations to the apt for you to move into it. The morning hours gives them the time to do that. As far as your security deposit goes....how did he rip you off? He returns it unless there are damages from you that he uses it for repairs. This is stated in your lease and is standing in every lease that collects a security deposit. Did you have a security deposit or prepaid last month's rent. If it was last months rent then it was applied to your last month rent and you paid nothing the last month you lived there. Sorry for your bad experience. Seems to me if someone was that miserable living somewhere they would not renew their lease after the first year when it expires. I no longer work there. I moved away but it was a good place to work.
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/06/2008
Maybe there's a reason that 12 of the other 15 realtors in Waltham on this page scored higher in either average rating or overall satisfaction. 8 of the 15 are better in both. Potential renters don't have to agree with these particular complaints, but they would be foolish to ignore the overall dissatifaction with Reynolds. And why is it unrealistic to expect that a landlord won't contact you before throwing away your furniture, or that he will respond to maintenance calls quickly? It seems as though every negative comment on this board talks about how poor the response time is from maintenance.
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/06/2008
I think your response sounds far fetched and like you are unfairly blaming a lot of your own troubles on Reynolds Real Estate. You violated rules by creating a fire hazard and got angry when the landlord removed your things so that you and all the other tenants could be safe. Grow up and take responsibility for the fact that you created that situation for yourself. And the fact that another tenant moved in who happened to be noisy? How is that the landlord's fault? It sounds like you should have an issue with the other tenant. The fact that they wouldn't let you in to your apartment before the move-in time specified on your lease? Big deal! It seems to me that you really hold a grudge over some very petty things and that you have unrealistic expectations. Like the other user said, you could have moved out if you were that unhappy. I live in an apartment managed by Reynold's Real Estate, and although they are not perfect, I find them to be reasonable and fair landlords.

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