Larry and Patricia Ostrom are both Oregon licensed real estate agents, and should know better. They are self professed millionaires, but what to put on the, down home persona to tenants and those they want mis-direct in business.
We not sure how much property they own, but the do not make needed repairs. They show a rental unit they own, and claim "they just bought it"—not true—and "they really don't know anything about the property"—not true.
In our case:
We paid $850.00 a month a 27 year old duplex, 3042 SW Laura Court, Troutdale Oregon, 97060, for a 2 bed/2 bath. The unit was built in 1980, and this unit was to come with some amenities.
Working wood burning fireplace
washer dryer in unit
frig in unit
self cleaning stove in unit
dishwasher in unit
new windows in unit
This is what we got:
A fireplace that never work, we were promise it would be fixed starting in the summer of 2006. It was never fix while we rented there. Just one false promise after the other.
We started getting extremely high PG& E bills within a month of living there, as it turns out we were paying the utility bill on a garages that we should have had our car in.
The garages had been switched by the previous tenants, and we made repeated requests to have the garages switched back.
The landlord refused, claiming that the other side of the duplex did not want to switch with us. Which we found distrubing, since he put on the persona that he was excessively "cheap with funds". Later we discovered why, he was using a freezer, extra frig and high powered tools on our PG&E bill. He cut the water off the front lawn, killed the grass and plants, and never mowed, but he wanted to control the front yard!!!
On top of that, the dishwasher did not work and when they sent the guy out to fix it, he came from a company called Spenser's in Portland. They are a very, very low end appliance company that sell used appliances. When the Spencer guy came out, he said that the dishwasher will never work right, and that all of the appliances had been purchased at Spencer's.
Sure enough:
The washer doesn't spin out correctly.
The dryer doesn't dry it takes 70 minutes or longer no real heat.
The dishwasher doesn't work, because the water pressure is too low.
The self-cleaning oven doesn't work, because a seal is broken, and if you try to cook over 400 degrees or use the "self cleaning" feature. It won't work and smokes up the kitchen.
The sky lights leak.
The new windows although they look nice, are at the low end of window treatments, and are not double pained, but just extra dense glass.
These landlords spend money in the wrong places. They painted a perfectly good exterior, rather than fix the fireplaces (both units had problems).
We froze to death this winter. Our bills for one month were $250.00 when our neighbors in another duplex unit, same age etc, not owned by Larry & Wife, were only paying $90.00 for the same month of PG&E bills.
The final straw for us was, when Larry & Wife hired the sly Fox Management company in June. We put in a raw sewage repair request, and they never fixed it, instead sly Fox Management sent out some flunky employee, who said we must have a dead rat in the roof of our unit—and left.
Their answer to the "rat" was to send a 30 day vacate letter, to shut us up with the board of health etc.
Well, we have done our "research" on "kick the tenant in the face" sly Fox Management, and Larry & Wife should be heading into foreclosure any month now—they deserve each other!!!
We are educated people, and paid our rent on time, in full, and do not complain, we are well liked in the neighborhood—except by duplex tenants who are using our electricity—We are clean, have a nice car, brand new furniture, no smoking, pets or kids to destroy the place.
Fact is we will never trust another landlord again!!!
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