Grimsleys Enterprise

just another oakland slumlord… *manic monday voice*
when we first looked at the house for rent, i offered to bring my dog along for him to meet her. he declined. we agreed on the apartment that night. when we moved in and brought our dog, he said «pit bulls aren’t allowed, i thought you had a retriever or something» tobias agreed to us calling her a «lab mix,» in the event anything actually happened, we would take blame (saying we lied to him, and he never knew.) this was agreed upon and we lived there unhappily for a year for a multitude of reasons.
tobias and his family will show up with no notice, whenever they please «because they are the owners.» this is pretty much their reason to do whatever the F* they want, because they don’t seem to understand tenant law in california. when i asked tobias to write notice letters, he texted «don’t start with me» as a response.
my boyfriend has «no» credit, and i have «bad» credit. our roomie has very good credit. tobias used it in repeated disagreements, because he «did us a favor by letting us live there.» we agreed to a non-​refundable deposit (illegal in california!) and moved in while tobias’ uncle adolf continued to «fix up» the place for move-​in.
adolf was a drunk, and a crackhead. the lighting AND electricity was f*d: many lights never worked in our house; (we paid for these fixtures with security deposit) the constant blowing of the fuse finally blew an EPS we owned. about 4 of the yellowed disgusting blinds in place in the house were replaced; and he shellac’d the claw-​foot tub in the backyard, so it dried with dirt stuck to it, and wasn’t even properly primed so the shellac started cracking off. (ALSO PAID FOR THAT)
they obviously hire undocumented construction workers (to replace adolf, which wouldn’t be a problem if they ACTUALLY did the work) and CONSTANTLY took water from the spigot on our house WHICH WE PAID FOR. (a crew once came to look at the roof of the primary house, and said it was so «ghetto» they wouldn’t work on it)
our oven broke around the time they sent a letter to all tenants stating they would no longer service any appliances in the apartments. this changes the terms of the lease obviously, but that didn’t phase them. we never had our oven replaced.
backstory: PG&E came because the «house» next door (there were 3 houses on this piece of land) caught fire and «turned out» to be an illegal sub-​unit. our laundry services were suspended for the entire rest of our lease as a result, and STILL HAD TO PAY for the services. (tobias told us to go to the apartment next door, because they owned that too. just the same as having on-​site laundry right?!) at that time we thought our oven pilot light died. PGE obliged but indicated that the actual part in the oven was burned out, and needed replacement & said it would be a waste of money to buy the part, pay for labor to replace it. did tobias heed his professional opinion? OF COURSE NOT. he had domingo «fix it» — it never actually worked. and then dom tried to argue with me that i didn’t know how it worked and the light was out, not the part of the oven. (*a 28y/​o woman doesn’t know how an oven works?)
a «backyard» offered with the lease had broken fences and was used as a storage for garbage for about 3months.
twrds the end of the lease, we received many 3 day notices about our dog: tobias and other family members lied saying they never met her, and never knew we had her. eventually his sister wanted to have a mtg. with us and i requested a neutral location — she said only some1 who was hiding things would say that. and also said that in a work envmt, the boss would not have a mtg with the employees out of the office. (indicating that she was the «boss», and i the «employee» — we payed THEM!)
they regularly showed up in new cars, blasting their beat. if they kept up our property and didn’t act as if i was trying to f* them over by demanding standard LEGAL RIGHTS, i wouldn’t have cared! buy what you want if you provide the service i pay you for! it was obv where the $ was rly going.
the itemized rcpt for the kept security deposit was WRITTEN IN TOBIAS’ HANDWRITING not by a professional company, and signed off by dom