My wife and I came to live at Country Springs apartments. My wife liked the apartment they showed us, and we were fooled by how nice the place looked. We moved in. The place wasn't that clean, so we had to clean it up some more. We were asked to pay $45.00 per person just for them to check our credit. After that, we were asked to pay a $250.00 Deposit. We signed the contract, and they told us we were going to have to pay $15.00 for a covered parking, plus renter's insurance, plus all utilities.
There was a time in which they lost the money order we paid with, and they sent us a warning telling us that we hadn't paid our rent, and even though we had the receipt they issued, they told us to go to Check City to get a duplicate of the money order, or else they were going to count it as not paid, and we were going to have to pay it again, or else it was going to go into collections.
Another time, we paid our rent, but I guess there was some confusion on the utility bill, so our rent was 0.60 cts. Short. They sent us a bill threatening to charge us $60.00 if those 0.60 cents were not paid by a certain date, and they were going to send that to collections if not paid in full. We paid that.
We moved and we spent two days cleaning the apartment really well. We rented a machine to clean the carpet. We fixed everything. Today 4/18, I received a bill from them telling me that I owed them $168.00. I went to their office, and I asked they why. They said they had to pay a lady to clean some more, they hired someone to professionally clean the carpet, and repaint some parts of the apartment, and they had to patch some parts of the walls. The apartment didn't have any holes, the paint was good, we had no children to damage the paint, or pets. The carpet looked really clean.
I asked them about my deposit, and the girl there said, "Oh, you actually won't see any of that, because that was an initiation fee." "We keep initiation fees." So we lose our $250.00, plus we still owe them $180.00 more. She also added, "You need to pay this bill within a week, or else it is going to collections." Is this fair? I called the Utah Housing Authority, and they sent me to another department which I don't remember. At that department I was told that it seems that there isn't anything we can do, that usually those properties can do whatever they want. I wish there was someone who could do something to stop all this abuse. The lady mentioned that if the property was owned by an individual, then I could sue, but because they are owned by companies you can't do anything.
Don't go to those apartments unless you want to get robbed. They are legal thieves. I don't know how is it that a state like Utah can give so much power to a business and allow that to happen to us as individuals.
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