My wife and I moved in with friends of ours in July of mainly because I was being deployed, and my wife was new to the area. Our friends had moved back home, and told us of the problems they had had with the realtors, but since they had been nice to us, we thought we would be fine. Boy were we wrong!
John and Joanne Vitt, to be honest, Joanne, had rolled the deposit our friends had paid to us, because our friends gave us and this company consent. We made sure that we weren't going to be held responsible for the damages done, and were assured we wouldn't be. When we filled out a move in checklist, we annotated everything that was wrong with the place, to include stains and a hole in the living room carpet, and other minor damages. JoAnne signed it and put it in our file.
About a year and a half after we moved in, John had taken over the reigns of the business so Joanne could concentrate more on the kids and teaching sunday school. I never had any problems still. Our washer and dryer that came with the place broke, John had them replaced with older washers and dryers, but we didn't care, just so long as they worked. Well, they then broke within a month of getting them. I called John and told him about it and was told, the owners didn't put them in there, a previous tenant had left them there, so I was on my own. No big deal, a lot of places don't have washers and dryers that come with the place you rent. So we bought our own.
We received authorization to paint the rooms, and do what we wanted to fix the place up from Joanne when we first moved in. So we painted the master bath, the bedroom and the spare room.
We then found out that John had sent letters to our friends command trying to track him down for money he owed them. This was about 6 months or so after they had left that I found this out. It didn't quite make sense to me, because they hadn't really fixed anything in the house except to repaint the living room.
For 5 years we were continuously told by both John and JoAnne that we were the best tenants they had ever had.
A few months after our fifth year there, we went on a month to month lease because we were looking at buying a house. Our rent went up, which was understandable. Then out of no where JoAnne wants to inspect the house, again, no big deal. Then without looking at our move-in checklist, she starts photographing the damages in my house. Keep in mind every year I asked for our carpets to be replaced, and was always told the owners said no. It had been around seven years or so since that carpet had been replaced, and we were the third tenants to move in after it had been replaced.
So she took the photographs because the tenants wanted new pics. She mysteriously forgets about the previous tenants, doesn't consult the move-in sheet, and we get 60 days to move out. I was also told by JoAnne that the owners were going to increase the rent and additional 50 dollars in a couple months.
The reason we were evicted was, and this is straight from JoAnne, the owners want to renovate the place and rent to people without pets. My wife and I were both in the military at the time, she still is, and didn't have all the time in the world to pick up and move on a whim. My dog never did any damage to the house. Base boards were rotting, things were starting to leak and it seems because I was always trying to get this stuff fixed, I was a burden.
This may not seem like a rip off, but this is where it gets better, It has been over a year and a half since we were evicted. 3 or 4 people have rented and moved from this place. I still have friends in the neighborhood who tell me. Now, I haven't changed my phone number in over 4 years, and John and JoAnne have used it many times.
I just checked my credit report, and with no phone call, no letter, (They had my wife's unit information) no nothing they put a collection on my credit report for $1975. Because of that, we lost a house we were going to buy. We moved to Louisiana because my wife was restationed, and we had to scramble to find a place to rent because they cost us a house. I am starting to look into what I can do, because it doesn't seem legal to put something on my credit report or my wifes when we were never notified that we had a debt. On top of that, how can you evict someone for the reason they told us, and a few weeks after we move out, someone new is living there. If anyone has some useful information on what I can do to fight this please let me know.
Marines and Sailors be warned!!!
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