Green Street Realty — Attraction in Champaign

Do NOT lease with these people. They are completely dismissive and they don’t hire enough people to care for their buildings. I even wrote an email to our manager Heidi Taylor who never replied. This is what I wrote:

“…We are writing to discuss a concern regarding the condition of our apartment at X. Before move-in, we were told the apartment was cleaned and repaired. We got permission to move in early, and we did not sign anything that disqualified the repairs/cleaning. I have emails of this as well.

Upon moving in on August 12th, I noticed several issues that proved that this was not the case. These include dead mold on the walls, water spots near the windows, grime on the exhaust fan, dust all over the carpet, dust and strings on the sprinklers, stains on the kitchen floor, and dust caked inside of the HVAC/vents despite having a new filter put in.

There are also some damages that were not fixed prior to arrival. As for my room (room A), one of the previous tenants left adhesives in one of the rooms, and it was obvious that they failed to pull it off after chipping a piece of drywall. The seals/caulking job on the windows are in poor condition and leave a draft of air that will mess with the AC/heating, especially during the winter. There is evidence that this was a problem previously since the last tenant covered the seals with tape. The drywall is also chipping off below the third window. There are also visible water spots above and below my windows that are caused me to worry about previous leaking. There are old mold spots near the vent as well.

Unfortunately I was correct, and the window in my room leaks profusely every time it rains. I put in a maintenance request for this on the 16th of August, and it has yet to be fixed. Almost every day for about 2 weeks I called asking for an update. I was told they fixed it, but they were referring to a completely different window in a totally different room. I had said in the work order that it was in room A, and they completely ignored it. The answer for every update, paraphrased, was always “It will be done soon” and that it was moved to a high priority WO. The last update I got stated that the window would be fixed by the end of last week. Nothing has been done since.

The same story has happened for our stove as well. One of our burners does not turn on, and it still isn’t fixed.

My tipping point was a few days ago. I noticed that our dryer was drying clothes very slowly, and there was moisture that was built up every time we did laundry. I figured that the dryer vent needed to be cleaned. After a couple of days, the WO was marked as completed despite the dryer still drying clothes slowly. I also started to smell a burning smell and there was a lot of lint in the lint compartment.

I went to go investigate, and I noticed that there was lint absolutely everywhere to a point where you could not see the floor behind the washer/dryer. Clearly the WO was not completed. I’m not sure if this was due to carelessness/negligence, but this is a safety hazard and could easily start a fire.

Continuing, on the Green St Realty website, our floor plan (plan G) shows a balcony, but ours does not have one. We can see that the same floorplan on the opposite side of the building does have a balcony, but they are also paying the same price as us per month. There are also many other things that were broken, some of which we fixed ourselves since we figured it would take forever to fix everything ese.

Given the current state of the apartment, we believe it is fair to request a refund for our cleaning fee and to have our rent lowered. I have attached a folder with photos to this email for your reference. If you need any dates, let me know.”

After all of the calling and pleading with the company at least 20 times, I resulted to getting a hold of the city and the dean of students to make a safety complaint due to the mold and the dryer. They finally fixed the dryer, but the window is still leaking after 3 months. They refused to listen to me, so at this point...

Now that I’ve officially moved out, they can’t threaten to withhold things from me anymore. So I can give my full, honest review. IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER OPTIONS, properties managed by Green Street Realty should be your LAST, I mean LAST choice.

Our move in was HORRID. We had been cleared to move in early by a previous employee (it was documented, we had proof) showed up the day that was approved to get our keys, and were told they had no knowledge of our early move in and our apartment wasn’t ready. We had taken off work, had a UHaul full of everything from our last apartment, and told our previous owners we’d be out that day. Not only were they RUDE AS HELL, we asked to speak to the boss and they said she was “unavailable” but when they went back to tell her the situation, we heard her saying things like, “I don’t care what the emails say they aren’t moving in today. Not my problem etc.” We had to go back to our old apartment, sleep on the floor, ask for MORE TIME OFF FROM WORK, pay rent for each day we overstayed, and pay extra money for the UHaul. I wrote the most disgusting review possible and talked to an attorney friend of my family about potentially getting out of my lease (which I wrote in the review).

They called the next day and said if I didn’t delete my review I would not be able to pick up my key and that our apartment would be ready in 2 days. At this point we lost a ridiculous amount of money just trying to move in, recieved no apologies or talk or any compensation in any way. We’re like okay cool, whatever. We get our keys, unlocked the doors, and the apartment was filthy. Floors peeling, glued chairs, stained and stapled countertops, nasty bathroom etc. We spent an entire day cleaning before we moved all of our stuff in, replaced the chairs, and fought spider webs and spiders for a week.

Fast forward we notice the couch is ripping in the middle because it looks like cat scratches from the previous owner in between the cushion and we didn’t notice it before so we didn’t document it on our check in sheet. The wear and tear over the course of the year with an already ripped couch got worse.

Our bedroom window seal was moldy looking, pealing, brown, and OPEN. There were nights when we were literally getting RAINED ON trying to go to sleep. We filled out a maintenance request, and followed up. Nothing was done about it until the WEEK BEFORE WE MOVED OUT. A maintenance man (who was very nice) came to look at it and was appalled, still did NOTHING, and asked for a good review on goggle because they were struggling. We were getting rained on and freezing.... but they still showed our apartment every other week. :)

Fast forward again now we’re all moved out in a different state. We left the apartment in better condition than it was given to us in (we weren’t able to remove years of filth that was there previous to us) and now we’re getting charged for a dirty bathroom, fridge, oven, and ripped couch, which were all in that condition when we moved in, and I’m sure they didn’t clean or replace anything for the new tenants. Probably just tapped and glued everything like they did for us. :) If you’ve gotten through this entire review, yay! I BARELY EVER write reviews for places, regardless of bad experiences. But this one I’ve been waiting to do for a long time.

Again, don’t move here if you have any other options. The property management is so unprofessional, and lack a level of communication they need to function property. You’ll put so much work, energy, effort, and MONEY into making your apartment into a decent living condition, only for them to charge you absurd amounts of money once you move out. Worst experience I’ve ever had and I hope nobody else has to go through what me and my fiancée went...

Problem 1: They think they’re never in the wrong. I signed a sublease to one of their apartments for the summer & was planning on bringing my dog. However, I made the mistake (as they said) on signing the apartment lease before the pet lease. However, I thought there weren’t any height and weight restrictions on the pets. On other real estate websites, the pet policy is either clearly stated with breed, weight, etc. restrictions, or just not stated at all and states to call the office. However, for Green Street Realty, they have a whole page of information (including restricted breeds) but do NOT have any weight or height restrictions, which can allow people to assume there isn’t any, as long as it is not a giant breed, such as a Great Dane, which was one of the restricted breeds. They state restrictions of past-aggressive animals, but never state that each apartment complex comes with different restrictions. So how were we supposed to know? Either put no information and state that you NEED to call the office, or put EVERYTHING including the weight restrictions on the lease. I went to the office and expressed my concern, so this wouldn’t happen to anyone else. But they basically put the blame on me, and didn’t even apologize. My mom also called the office but they were basically just blaming her for not calling the property manager and checking in first. My thing is that if you’re going to have that much information on a pet lease, people are going to think that that is it— no further questions asked. It’s not that difficult to add in “pet weight limits vary from apartments, or pet weight limit is under 20 lbs.” Also, the pet weight limit is so dumb— most people have dogs that are usually over 30 lbs. Never signing with them again.

Problem 2: I subleased at 210 E. White Street for the summer, for 2 months. Number one, they gave my roommate a parking fee of $150, and then told me mine was $250 even though we were in the same parking lot. I told and confronted them about it, and they said "We will change it." Yeah you better. Always double, triple check with these scammers.

Problem 3: Whoever labeled the parking numbers for the spots must not know how to count. None of the parking numbers were labeled for 210 E White, only 208 E White, where the parking lots are connected. I mistakenly thought spot #7 on 208 E White was mine, and kept parking there. However, it was not mine. When I called and asked about it, they said I was on the opposite side, but none of the parking spots were labeled on that side, so I just guessed. Afterwards about two weeks later after the issue had resolved, I randomly received a very passive aggressive email from Heidi Taylor saying in the lines of "We have already been through explaining parking numerous times, I can come out and show you myself if you do not understand." So rude. How do I know where to park if you do not label the spots.

Problem 4: They recharged us for utilities AFTER my roommate and I (subleasees) moved out, and used the original leasee's security deposit to pay "damages that were our fault" without ANY PERMISSION OR CONSENT. The original leasees had to email and ask about the security deposit, only to find out green street had used it for unnecessary charges, such as "broken" things that were already broken before we moved in.

In conclusion, I cannot express my anger and frustration enough dealing with this company. This should be your very last resort as a leasing company, only when you are on the verge of being homeless. Even then they would try to scam you hundreds of dollars. Never again. Don't bother replying with a "compassionate" and...