Brownstone Properties, Inc — Local services in Lynchburg

If I could give 0 stars I would. At all costs, do not rent here. Management is not professional and organized and maintenance is almost never done timely, even when it's something important. Then when you send them respectful emails to notify them the maintenance isn't completed, they accuse you of harassment. There are so many stipulations to the lease and if you sublease the management never inspects prior to move in, so you are left with whatever crap and chaos the previous tenants left. Mold was growing repeatedly in the house. The carpets were horribly stained and smelled like cat pee and it took months of arguing with them to get them to agree to replacing. It took them two years to exterminate a rodent infestation in the house, because my roommate told them upon move in that there were mice and they did nothing. Apparently it's up to the tenant to exterminate, but if upon move-in it's already infested, then the landlord should do something immediately.

When we emailed them a few times to remind them to take care of the mold issues, because one of us was having allergic reactions to it, they sent us a letter basically accusing us of harassment and threatening to evict us if we didn't comply with their new options (not sure how sending respectable emails is harassment. We're just trying to get what we pay for every month). Our lawyer told us they were basically scaring us out. They also changed our lease to a 3 bedroom instead of 4 bedroom without consulting us first, and raised the rent despite us not being allowed to have a fourth person there anymore (when the rent increase notice they sent a couple months previously stated 4 bedrooms). They sent us that threatening letter at 5pm on a Friday and gave us until Monday to decide if we would leave or stay and comply with their letter, and we had been on vacation that weekend. They wouldn't talk to us afterward to tell us why they changed our lease to a 3 bedroom (though, we believe it's because the fourth bedroom was illegal, and we pointed this out to them and asked for it to be renovated to include an emergency window. There were other code violations besides not having a window too. We asked them to put in an emergency window in case of a fire, and they refused and said they had been grandfathered into past code. But of course then, a few weeks later, they just up and change our lease to a 3 bedroom, which substantially increases rent per person). We tried to move a couple months ago to a different property at Montview but Brownstone would never return our calls or communicate properly, so by the time they told us we could terminate our current lease and switch (which at first they said we could possibly terminate, then they told us we couldn't, then they changed it again and said we could), the property we wanted to move to was taken. Very unorganized. Overall, not a good place to rent from. Kelly is nice and we appreciate her being the middleman for us with the owner of the Montview property we lived at, but the whole management needs a substantial change and needs to be held accountable to making the premises habitable, and not sending us a threatening letter when all we've done is communicate our needs as tenants. The owner complained in that letter about needing to replace our A/C and that it was costly, but as the owner, when an A/C is broken, it's your job to replace it. You can't expect us to pay for a property that doesn't have functioning A/C in this summer heat. It's your job to replace it. Our deck was old and rotten and breaking apart, and deemed unsafe by a maintenance man, and brownstone literally told the maintenance guy to come back and remove the caution tape and not do anything to fix it or renovate it to safety standards?? That's what you sign up for when you become an owner - to keep a house up to code, keep it safe, and habitable. That's what we signed for on our lease. The rent is ridiculous for the condition of the property. They need to start inspecting whenever a tenant leaves and a new person moves in. Do not...

I am currently a tenant of Brownstone property. I reported to my manager Kelly that my ceiling in the living room was about to cave in on July 9th. She put in a ticket, I did not hear anything from anyone, so I reported again through the portal that it was getting worse by the day. I did this on July 30th with photos. A man called me(I find out later that this man is the painter for the company)and told me that he was on a job that he absolutely could not leave and that he would come next week. I said that was fine. He called August 9th and said he could not make it due to the rain( understandable). When I got off work I washed clothes, went home to eat something and watch TV. I leave the apartment to go put my clothes in the dryer at the Laundromat. Come back (5 minutes later) And the whole living room ceiling was on the floor! I could have been in that living room if I had waited a little longer to go put the clothes in the dryer. I could have been hurt or worse. I went by the Gretna fire station and they came by and checked everything out to make sure there was no fire hazard. The fire Marshal made the call that it was not liveable at the moment. I would like to give thanks to the Gretna Fire squad for all of their help. I called the emergency number for Brownstone and got the maintenance man Mr. Ruff and he paid for me a room for the night, and came first thing this morning to check on things, apologized for everything I went through. He called the manager Kelly to see what to do because insulation was everywhere. We waited for her to call back. He had to end up calling her back. I told him to ask her about a room and she said that my renters insurance would reimburse me, but I had to pay for the room, while that may be true( and I understand). I proceed to say I wouldn't be going through this if someone was sent when I first reported it( he had her on speaker so I could hear everything) Her response...was even if we would have come it wouldn't have stopped the ceiling from falling. I reported that it looked like the ceiling was about to cave in. So to me, they would have been able to see that there was an issue. Did they know that the whole ceiling was going to cave, no, but they should have believed me when I said it looked like it because it had a dip on one whole side. And I find out that they planned on sending a painter to look at the ceiling anyway, so of course he may not have found anything. Then he calls Jennifer the owner, I tell him to tell her to call me, and her response was she doesn't want to get involved, that I need to speak with Kelly. I did not receive any kind of remorse from Jennifer (the owner) nor Kelly( my property manager). An apology or seeing if I was okay would have been great. But that goes to show that they do not care as long as the rent is getting paid. They didn't even show up or anything to check on the property. It's the weekend , but it's still their property. I know I'm missing some details, but my mind is a little messed up thinking about how I could have been sitting in that living room. Thanks a lot for caring for...

Very unsatisfied with this rental company. We are moving to the Lynchburg area and was suggested this property by a friend who rented from them in the Bedford area. We went online to put in an application and paid the fee. We called 3-4 days later for an update and was advised that they were "still processing the application". After another full week of not hearing anything, we tried to call again. We called for 3-days straight, and no one ever answered. When someone finally answered she presented herself as Keisha (whose tone and her constant cutting off during conversation was quite rude) she advised that we had been denied for the apartment due to a Progressive bill. However, no one called us to tell us that we were denied, just left us wondering or even presented other options. We have not had Progressive in over 5 years and was not even aware that this was on the credit report as any other time we have applied for any other property this has never came up. Keisha was very rude, seemed uninterested to help and then just transferred us in the middle of me trying to ask clarifying questions to "Kim" who did not answer and we were sent to a voicemail. We then called back to the main number and Keisha would not answer the phone (blatantly ignoring the calls). When we did finally get her back on the phone she stated that this particular property was very strict in renting but did not provide us with an option to pay the Progressive bill, or even look at other properties. She then stated that the person who denied us did not say we could look at other properties nor provided us with any other options (not even to pay the bill which could have very easily been done). Its been 3 weeks since the application was put in, 3 weeks we have wasted trying to find some where to move before our deadline and now we were advised that we would have to wait for this "person" to come back to discuss any other options. At this point, we are going to cut our losses on the $40 application fee (which is outrageous as most places in the area charge $25-30) and just find a different rental company. This has been a massive headache and the amount of rudeness, lack of communication, unwillingness to help or provide options is not something we want in a landlord. If you want to waste your time and money and get nothing but a headache then come to this rental agency. Otherwise, if you want a different experience skip this place all together. Not a good first welcome to the Lynchburg...