I rented a house at 16181 W. Cottonwood in Surprise, Arizona from Century 21 Metro Alliance. It had only been marginally cleaned before I moved in and I left it immaculate when I moved out.
Before any agreements, I talked to Jane Wombolt on the phone about deposits and down payments for the house. She told me, as I was writing it down, that pet deposits would be $100 for each dog. The night before we were to meet and sign the lease, suddenly the pet deposits were $300 each, and I was to expect to only get half of that back. Naturally this angered me, and she acted as though I was being unreasonable to be upset by this news.
If I would have known she was going to lie, I would have recorded all conversations with her. So this was settled by her "contacting the owner" and suddenly the deposit was $300, which I was not going to get back.
During the time I was living there, inspections were scheduled for just about every other month. I expected to have at least a couple in a year's time, not constant ones. She absurdly put in her inspection notices that I was to either lock my dogs out of the house, or close them in the garage on those days. The temperature in Arizona reaches well over 100, I was not about to abuse my dogs for her sake.
After a certain amount of time living there, I suddenly got a notice in the mail that stated that "due to the owner's increased operating expenses" my rent was going to be increased. The rent when I moved in was $875, before taxes. After a year, it was suddenly $925, pre taxes. Oddly enough, as soon as I moved out, the rent for the house was listed on their website as being $895. Strange that suddenly the owner didn't need to cover these mysterious "operating expenses" anymore.
Following the move out inspection, I didn't get my deposit back until an entire month had passed. According to what I've read, that was well past the amount of time I was supposed to have waited for it.
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