Jim Eischens
Rip-off Slumlord Landlord cheats lies steals & commits legal fraud against his tennants along with his assistant Denise Craig

Never rent a unit in Minneapolis from Jim Eischens and Denise Craig! Jim owns between 100 and 200 housing units around Minneapolis, and he commits fraud against his tenants regularly.

In the year he wrongfully sued just over 200 of his tenants with false claims; he does not serve them with a court notice, so when they dont show up he is awarded between $2,000 and $7,000 (the top limit in concilliary court in MN.)

Also, Jim Eischens does not EVER pay back his tenants security deposits.

1) Landlord is notorious around the University of Minnesota (U of MN) campus for being a slumlord (as well as with the MN Tenant's Union, and with the U of MN Student Legal Services.)

2) He never conducts genuine repairs, only paints or patches over things to give a repaired appearance, and that happens only after weeks or months of complaints

3) The landlord owns ~100-250 houses around the U of MN campus, and attempts to administrate them all himself with only the help of a small office staff.

4) Landlord swindles student tenants who are unaware of their tenant rights

5) Landlord never pays back tenants security deposits; instead he requires that old tenants contact new tenants to receive their security deposit, and then the new tenants will not get back the money they paid to the old tenants, until they move out and are required to ask the newer tenants for a money return. The landlord also demands a security deposit from the new tenants. This way the landlord does not have to worry about any debts to tenants, he gets to keep the security deposits of all of his tenants leaving them confused about who owes whom money, nor does the landlord have to pay the required 3% annual interest on the deposit.

6) Only some of the landlords houses have parking spaces, and those that do only have enough spaces for the tenants in those houses. Despite this, the landlord rents out space in those lots or driveways to tenants of houses further away from campus, filling lots or driveways with cars blocking one another.

7) The landlord charges tenants for things which he is not legally allowed to charge tenants for, such as lawn mowing, and shoveling. Most tenants who receive bills for these services reluctantly pay them, not knowing that it is illegal for the landlord to charge for these services.

8) The landlord frequently puts more than three unrelated tenants in a house, which is illegal.

9) The landlord never notifies his tenants about the MN Renters Rights handbook, which he is legally required to do.

10) The landlord does not notify his tenants that he will be entering their rental units beforehand as he is required to do

In our case specifically:

1) Jim Eischens doubled our rent when he bought the house, and put five people in a four person, one bathroom, house (intending for the fifth to stay in a 'mud room', which is below housing code dimensions for an inhabitable room)

2) In the middle of our 2001 lease, he replaced our, as well as all of our neighbors, washing and drying machines with pay-only coin-operated ones. We notified the landlord that it is unethical, as well as very likely illegal during the middle of a lease to change free washer dryer units to pay ones. The landlord did not remove pay-boxes from the units until our co-signer threatened him with a lawsuit.

3) In the middle of the 2002 lease, the landlord began to rent out parking spaces in our driveway.

4) The landlord did not conduct repairs (or merely hid things needing repair) on the house, including, but not limited to:

A. Bathroom faucet getting no hot-water pressure

B. One of bathroom faucet handles constantly leaking onto the floor and into the wall of the bathroom

C. Bathroom shower floor had cracked and was leaking water into the living room through it's ceiling, so the landlord placed a 4ftx4ft wooden panel over the ceiling's leak areas. Wooden panel merely directed the water into the wall of the livingroom, which rotted away over the course of the next year and filled the house with mold and mildew.

D. House was never wired with telephone jacks, other than a single one in the livingroom. Landlord claimed more jacks were unnecessary, so we (the tenants) strung phone cords around the house using splices and patches

E. The top floor of the house was wired for electricity in series and not circuit, which was below electrical / fire / housing codes by more than a decade. This was never repaired, and it caused frequent power outages on the top floor.

F. The outside of the house was wooden, and appeared to have been rotting for 10-20 years. The landlord haphazardly stapled onto the house very cheap plastic siding over the rotting wood to give it the appearance of being re-sided.

5) the landlord never changed locks (since long before he owned the house; making the locks at least five years old, having gone through a minimum of 17 tenants (along with the copies they made for boyfriends and girlfriends) just during the course of three years.

Company: Jim Eischens
Country: USA
State: Minnesota
City: Minneapolis

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