Union Station Apartments

Union Station Apartments /The Connor Group Shabby Construction, Constant Roof Leaks, Charging Tenants for the Companies Utility Bills Larry Connor

15th of Aug, 2011 by User617374

I rented at Apartment at Union Station in West Chester Ohio a year ago and it was the worst mistake I ever made. The rent was given as $679. I saw the apartment and many repairs were needed. I was told everything would be done before a move in but they had the check my credit and references first. After they checked my credit and references they called to set up a move in date and asked me to stop by the sign the lease and then I could move in. In the meantime I made moving arrangements and surrendered my previous residence. When I got to the rental office, they gave me what appeared to be a usual lease, and I signed it. But later in the move in arrangements the agent told me she had forgotten to get to me to sign the "utility addendum" which was never mentioned before. I was told this was simply to cover the water I used. Of course by then I had already given up my previous residence and signed the lease. The "utility addendum" is linked to a company "Heartland Regional Power" that appears to be owned by or related to the Connor Group. Per their website "Heartland Regional Power is a privately owned company based in Dayton, Ohio. It was founded in 2001 to help apartment communities recover the cost of utilities and conserve resources" Their goal is to "maximize their successful collections efforts" for the communities they serve. The utility addendum bill ended up costing me $60 to over $100 per month. Certainly not a water bill!! These were costs that at any other apartment complex the OWNER would pay. They charge you for ESTIMATED water, sewage, "common electric" (e.g: lights in the parking lots, electric used for building and hallway lighting, running the pool and clubhouse) pest control, etc. So effectively the rent was $100 a month more than they state. Later they added a 49$ a month cable charge which wasn't even in the agreement, and you had to pay even if you didn't want cable. My cable bill was more expensive after they took over, and the apartment complex and Heartland get a cut of your cable bill then.. The buildings were very shabbily built. The electric boxes fell out of the walls several times, sometimes sparking. I later learned they were not installed correctly when the building was built. The roof leaked for four months, damaging the ceiling, the smoke detector fell down where the ceiling had rotted away. The carpet was wet from the roof leaking. A kitchen drawer had fallen apart and had to be glued back together. The laminate was peeling off all the cabinets in the kitchen and was never repaired. The kitchen floor tile had been laid a previous floor which was damaged and never repaired so the floor had up and down spots. The dishwasher was probably 30 years old and a mess. I will say the maintenance people were very nice and tried hard, but the work they had to do was overwhelming and was more than a maintenance person could do. The buildings were poorly built, they needed major renovations and what was done was cosmetic cover ups to make them look better. Stay away from apartments owned by this company or anyone who has a "utility addendum" from Heartland. They are bad, bad news and another way to bilk tenants a out of more money to increase the owners profits and inflate the true cost of rent.

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