If I listed every problem experienced by me and all the other renters I knew I'd be writing for hours, so this is only a brief summary.

The landlord is Al Stowell, unless he's sold the place since I lived there. When I had problems I called the Austin Tenants Council and they told me they had a file on him an inch thick. He keeps tenants' deposits as standard operating procedure. He personally checked me out of my apartment, but when doing so COMPLETELY FAILED TO MENTION all of the things he would be charging me for. This was completely ridiculous, since we were both standing in my apartment, and if he wanted to charge for alleged damage or wear to the carpets or walls or whatever you'd expect that he would have said something like, "Well, your carpet looks dirty, I'm going to have to charge you for that." But no. He said nothing, just signed the papers, and then after I moved out I get a letter listing all the things he's deducting from my deposit. The carpet was one of them, although in the 5 months I lived there I removed my shoes *every single time* I entered the apartment, with the exception of the days I moved in and out.

That's not all. He agreed to let me out of my lease a month early, and already knowing he was dishonest from talking to several other current and former tenants, I made sure to get it in writing. I went to the office and signed a form titled something like "Notice of Intent to Move Out". But I didn't read it carefully. It didn't modify my lease at all, so according to my lease I was still liable for the 6th month. Needless to say he pretended he'd never agreed to release me for the last month and charged me for it, by deducting from my deposit and by billing me for the rest, and turning me over to a collection agency when I refused to pay since I didn't owe it.

If you have a problem like this, forget about suing. Your lease contains a clause that says that if you sue and lose you have to pay the landlord's court costs, which could be thousands of dollars. That's why it's easy for him to seize deposits with little fear of being taken to court over it.

On the maintenance front, their water treatment equipment made a loud banging noise for about half an hour when it cut in at FIVE IN THE MORNING. It took me weeks to get them to deal with that. I checked it out the equipment closet when they had the company to come out and deal with it, and the first thing I saw was that it was easy to set the timer to have the thing operate at noon rather than at 5am, so I changed it myself. (The workers were unsure about how to set it themselves.) I was also a bit dismayed to discover that the apartment was injecting all these chemicals into the water in order to keep the pipes clean. I bought bottled water to drink after that.

One of the more memorable experiences was when I taped a political cartoon critical of George Bush on my front door and the landlord removed it. I'm not assuming he removed it, he actually admitted to it.

Oh, the neighborhood is not the worst, but not the best, either. I got mugged at the convenience store across the street and went to the hospital with a concussion.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates