YES! Communities

BEWARE! SCAMMER ALERT! Coming from Florida we were in a pinch as we had sold our home and wanted to come back to NC. We decided to take a rental until we found what we wanted purchase. My son came and took a tour and filled out the application and was approved. During the application process the leasing office advised there was a $23.66 "administrative fee" that would be charged every month for the water. At the particular moment he advised of this "fee", I really wasn't thinking being in the middle of a massive move states away. Guaranteed I thought about the first bill we received! I wondered just why the lease was so huge and thick and then I decided to read through it. This place is an HOA and they control the water, garbage and sewer. They do NOT tell you it's an HOA up front, either. The rent "sounded" reasonable which is $391 per month for the "home rent" and $471 per month for the "base" rent or lot rent which totals $871. Sounds decent, right? WRONG! The first bill we received was $1, 029.57! The additional $158 were charges as follows: Sewer $52.91, water $69.57 which includes the "administrative fee" of $23.66 and garbage pick up of $15.71. I was LIVID as I have never had such exorbitant utility bills and there is NO way we use that much water and sewer but they have a chokehold on the tenants with their HOA and charge whatever they choose. I immediately stopped using their non energy efficient dishwasher and their VERY antiquated oven as much as possible. Also, the HVAC in this unit is rusted out and looked as though it had NEVER been cleaned out of dust, dirt, etc. and there was NO new filter in it. That hadn't been changed in God knows how long. You would think that maintenance would have checked that out while it was being cleaned in-between occupants. (Maintenance is a whole other problematic issue.) And, no, the water department cannot help you since it's an HOA. I never had such outrageous utility in my adult life and I am 61 years old. I've never had a mortgage this expensive for this late 1990s single-wide disaster. When my son had taken a tour of this unit he pointed out that there was a window missing in one of the bedrooms. Remember now, he looked at this place in October of 2020. The maintenance tech, a female, told him that we get that replaced ASAP. It took until mid-February to get the window replaced! I had to call multiple times just about that issue alone. Well, I was REALLY enraged when we got our first Duke Energy bill and it was $247! Once again, I have NEVER, EVER paid such a ridiculously high electric bill. We noticed that the front door had a huge gap between the door itself and the jamb with the heat having loads of fun going through that gap. I called and called and called to have someone look at it. Once the tech was here to look at the door in late December, early January, I mentioned to him about the window AGAIN. He was now the third tech to say they would get on it. I also brought up the fact that several window screens were missing and we wanted those in place. Seriously, with the electric bill I just knew we would be opening windows quite a bit come Spring/Summer. The outside electrical outlet was not working and I had to tell them about that several times as well. The tech came back the next day and put some extra thick weather stripping in the door. Great, except that we now cannot lock the door because it will not go flush! After witnessing several police cars running at a high speed through this "community" as well as the fact of beer cans and models laying in many yards I wanted to be able to lock the door where I'm paying this crazy amount of money given the circumstances. We made a judgement call and removed the stripping. I called maintenance and left a message advising that we needed this fixed ASAP. I left two or three MORE messages over the course of several days with NO response. I could the manager is just as unresponsive and uncommunicative as the joke of a maintenance department. I had no recourse but to call headquarters in Colorado and tell them I wanted this situation fixed and fixed NOW! The manager, Yvette, can get a really nasty attitude. When I told her about the door and window that needing repairing/replaced she said to me "Well, we had somebody out there and you didn't like the work done." WHAT?
She has NO managerial skills because no professional manager would say such. I told HER it wasn't a matter of like/dislike but rather it was the fact that the door could NOT be locked! How stupid can she be? We are now paying nearly $1300 per MONTH for this trailer when you add in Duke! And she gets an attitude with me telling me I "didn't like" the work. I also reminded her that the window issue was pointed out in OCTOBER of last year and had gotten different stories on why it hadn't been replaced and the equally rude lead maintenance person, Victoria, had even said the window was in and would be replaced soon. That was back in NOVEMBER! Then we were told it was the wrong window and she had put in a request for another one but it wouldn't be here until March! So it would then be a total of FIVE months of no window. After my call to headquarters, the manager called (she got called on the carpet) and arranged a time for the "door man" to be here with a vague "sometime next week". No actual date or time but "sometime next week". Several days passed into the following week and I called AGAIN telling her nobody had been here during this "sometime"... The "door man" showed up the next day advising he would have to order the door and it would be about a week. He also said he didn't understand why Victoria hadn't called him earlier about this job! That means Victoria is a liar and never called the man like Yvette had stated. Will wonders never cease (insert rolling eye emoji). He also stated that he would also be installing the window. FINALLY! These windows and storm windows are factory installed and very cheap so any kind of insultation, be it a window, helps given the electric bills. Next week comes and no door man. I called the following week after he made no appearance for Yvette to tell me the weather had been bad on such and such a day. I reminded here that was ONE day of bad weather and NOT the day she was referring to. They just keep on and on and on with their excuses attempting to make the tenant feel stupid. Well, she found the WRONG person for that. Who pays these kinds of bills and has to deal with the joke of a maintenance department with that attitude, HER attitude and now lies and the blame-game? Door man finally got here that week and installed the door along with the windows. Back to Duke Power - in cutting back and not running that ancient HVAC nor their awful appliances we had hoped to have the bill cut way down. NOT SO! We received another big bill of $229 so cutting back was useless. We called Duke Energy to ask about the average bill here for this unit. The agent looked it up and told us that our bills were cheaper than the previous tenant who was paying closer to $350 per month! She went further to say that all of the tenants in our cul-de-sac as well as around the entire park which consists of 460 trailers! She further said her guess was the poor insulation with these old homes. We spoke with a few other tenants that are just as outraged at the water/sewer and electric bills as well. I called AGAIN to ask for someone to come over here and check out the insulation. Of course, since there is little to no communication/response from these unprofessional employees, I had to call Colorado AGAIN. Yvette showed up the next day with some other lady asking if I would understand that maintenance was there working should we come home to find the skirting removed. Wow. Who knew what a rocket scientist she is and that I'm not. I replied to her that since we weren't in tornado/hurricane season that I would automatically figure that it was, indeed, maintenance checking out the insulation. Yeah, that was two weeks ago. I won't call again because we know we will be out of here come November. I will say that I wondered why Yvette felt the need to show up here unannounced and with someone else in tow but forgot about it. Until a neighbor filled me in as to probably why she brought a witness. Apparently the tenant before us had real problems with Yvette. We have also been told by a few others that she is not liked here because of everything I pointed out but mostly due to her attitude. At any rate, the story goes that Yvette was caught by the previous tenant skulking around the unit at night taking pictures. The tenant pulls a gun on her. How true this is I have no idea but I wouldn't doubt it the way Yvette behaves. We also learned there was a Do Not Rent sign on this unit after the tenant left due to really bad pipes in the master bathroom. So unless you are willing to pay approximately $1300 in rent for an OLD trailer without energy-efficient appliances and poor insulation with the huge bill of $125-$140 per MONTH and the high electric bills and get poor quality maintenance and management situations this place is shady and awful. Incidentally, the screens have yet to be replaced/installed and this is March. And, yes, this place is a huge scam. Save yourself some headaches and time and stay away.