Cynthia Chance review: Unreliable tennant 2

I have rented from Cynthia twice. Once, when I first arrived in the country (I am from Canada) and again when I was between houses. I spent over 4 months with her the first time and have known her for nearly 8 years. She is very sweet and a terrific landlady. In fact, she is much more than a landlady. She goes out of her way to make her renters comfortable and provides them with much more than just a room. She makes sure they have what they need to be comfortable and even lends them items such as irons, etc. when they need. She even lent one student her car. I have never had a landlord do any of that. I recommended her place to several people and two of them also rented from her. They both agree that she is terrific. I also met other renters, some from Italy and Belgium, who also love it there and think alot of her. I keep in touch with a few of them on Facebook and they never said a bad word about her. Whoever wrote that bad review of her has alot of issues and needs to grow up.

Rather surprised to find this post. I rented a room to Liane and her boyfriend, Andrew, for three months. I never once told them not to tell anyone they were staying and in fact introduced them to my family and neighbors as my renters. I have many, many witnesses to this fact.

Yes, they were also to be housesitters as part of the arrangement (for lowered rent) was that they were to water the plants and look after the home while I was away. I had been spending the time at my parents' home due to my father's failing health and advancing lung condition. My mother had been handling it on her own and needed help.

I did not refund their deposit for several reasons.
#1: They damaged two pieces of furniture while there out of basic stupidity (placing wet glasses and messy laundry detergent bottles on antique furniture with nothing to protect the wood. The cost to me to repair either of them is far more than the $250 deposit I asked them to provide.

#2: They never once cleaned their own room or bathroom, which I didn't care about during their stay as it was their area and they had to live in it... but certainly when they left they should have had the decency to have taken care of the bathroom at the very least. They have lived with their parents all their lives and clearly had never cleaned at home. I hired a cleaning company to take care of their mess and used their cleaning fee to pay for it. That is the whole point of a cleaning fee.

#3: Andrew said he would "fix" a virus in my father's computer as he was a former Geek Squad technician and knew everything about computers. He said it would take about 30 minutes. He had the computer for over two weeks and kept stalling to return it. I had to ask numerous times for it. He never mentioned money but later charged me for the work when he was finished. I paid it. The computer had nothing but problems afterwards and would not even recognize the Internet. It cost me $125 to have a real technician fix it. Clearly, he did not know what he was doing.

Liane apparently became stressed over having moved away from her parents and about living with Andrew. They fought loudly in their room at night and had to be asked several times to keep it down so as not to wake up the household. Both Andrew and Liane had very well-paying jobs as online game designers/testers. I later learned that she was on medication for a variety of emotional issues. She had a nervous breakdown and quit her job to return to her parents' home in Inglewood (I believe it was there).

Halfway through the month they emailed me and said they were moving out and that they wanted their deposit and rent back for the month. She had quit her job and returned to her parents' home, but Andrew still stayed at the apartment and she visited several nights per week. He worked around the corner as a game tester for a major computer game developer. She was basically there half the time and he was there nearly all of the time... yet they wanted to pay only half of the rent since she had "moved out".

I tried to explain to them how the renting process works and that one should give proper notice, etc. They didn't seem to hear a word I said and instead became instantly difficult and hostile. After this conversation, they hardly spoke to me the entire time they were there.

I explained that it was unfair of them to expect anyone to take a loss in rent without proper notice, especially as they both were in very well-paying jobs with no other expenses except their cell phone bills. They had been living at home for free and spent every penny they made on the latest technology gadgets. Had this been a case of hardship, I would certainly have understood and worked with them. However, this was simply a case of arrogance and immaturity.

I have rented to friends of friends for the past ten years and have never had a situation such as this. I have received nearly all of my renters through referral as a terrific place with very few hard-and-fast house rules, insisting on a pleasant, relaxing atmosphere. I have made friends with my renters and still keep in touch with nearly all of them to this day. Several of them have returned for additional stays.

This experience with these two immature and selfish people really was a disappointing and stressful situation and I truly neither deserve nor appreciate this dishonest and vengeful posting.