California-West Inc

The first post on this thread is a farce. Obviously it was posted by CalWest themselves.. I'll make it brief and too the point. 1. Very unfriendly staff, the manager ""Ellie"" seems to be a very stressed out individual with an attitude. 2. They do not return phone calls. If you want to talk to them about ANYTHING, you have to go to the office, and even then expect to wait 20 or 30 minutes to be heard. 2. Unless the roof is falling in or there is a flood, don't expect basic maintenance requests to be answered in a timely manner.(months) 3. Calwest took over management after the previous landlord sold the property. All the new tenants moving in after they took over were of the criminal element. A few drug dens have since surfaced and police cars answering calls a common sight now. (Bullock Gardens) It is obvious that they dont do background checks, at least not for Bullock Gardens anyway. 4. The landscaping has deteriorated. Hoping to save on the water bill, they only watered the visable landscaping from the street, or public view. Go into the interior of the property and one will see all the grass and flowers have died, not to mention the 2 trees that fell down do to lack of water. Thank god there weren't any kids playing when the trees fell down. 5. Very dishonest when it came to the deposit. They will do anything possible to keep it all. Only after hiring an attorney did we get half of it back. The process took months... 6. They are known to use loopholes to get you out in order to get new renters in so that they can push a higher rent. Rudeness, Rudeness, Rudeness is all Calwest has to offer. There motto should be, ""Just pay your rent and shut the hell up!"" more

From the day we showed up in town looking for an apartment to the day we ended our rental agreement the people at California West were amazing. They were great to us, treated us like family, not a single complaint. They worked hard to make sure we were comfortable and got what we paid for, and they went out of their way to help us with some special requests. We weren't real excited to have to use a property management company but they changed our minds! Be nice to them! They are awesome even though they have to deal with a lot of jerks. more

In April of 2010 I contacted my property management about the stucco falling off the side of the house, in June on the 4th I receive a letter posted on my door saying the owner was going to have the side of the house fixed on June the 9th. On June 9th I was woken up by workers outside my bedroom window tearing down a privacy cinder block wall in front of my house. They said they were taking it out to get the stump out that was on the other side. They asked where the hose was because they were going to be removing 2 5x10 concrete slabs that where my front porch. When I came home the stump was still there where the 2 concrete slabs where removed as well as the privacy wall. The ground was soaking wet and stayed wet for 5 days. They tried to soak out the stump, there where tire marks on the grass where they attempted to pull it out. On the 10th of June they did the stucco on the side of the house once again using my hose. I know they used my hose because it was left out both days. All was fine. Until I received the bill for June and July. The bill was 330 dollars. I have lived at this house for the last 5 years and my average water bill is $110. The most it has ever been was $220. I went to the property management and gave them a copy of the $330 bill, and explained what my average bill was and that they had people come to the house and they extremely used my water during that time. They responded that it was physically impossible but they would let the owner know since it was his guys that worked on the house. I went home and did a check and timed how long it took to fill up a 5 gallon bucket, it took less than 20 seconds. I went back in to property service and informed of how quick the water flow was. I explained that if the workers used my water 2 days in a row and left the water running they would have used 149000 gallons of water while I was at work. They said they would let the owner know and get back to me. In the meant time I was working with the water company to insure my water did not get turned off. I received a letter from property service stating that the owner stated his guys did not use my water and he refused to pay for it. I called property service and asked them how this is possible when the workers asked for my hose and told me they were going to use it. The property service explained they only take complaints and said owners never do anything and that?s why they pay the property service to handle it. She?Teresa? also stated I have two choices either pay the bill or have my water turned off. I paid rent and 7 days later a notice to vacate was posted on my door saying the owner wanted to remodel and sorry. 5 days later I gave 30 day notice, and asked what I had to do to get my deposit back. They stated make sure everything was clean and not to leave anything so that it would have to be trucked out. I rented a 20 yard roll of service and made sure the whole place was clean. I had my final walk through, they stated it was cleaner then it was when I lived there. They also stated the back yard was fine. They did not mention any of the issues other then slight cleaning that had to be done. They left me the key and I did as much as I could. Now then when it is time for me to get my deposit back they have no list of cost, no list of services. The whole house has been remodeled, the back yard landscaped, when it was never landscaped in the past. They are claiming removal of smell, yet during the walk through there was none, yet they repainted, removed carpet, installed tile, did complete makeover, yet/remodel like stated they are trying to charge me for items that were not on their list and things they need to do regardless because of rental laws! California west Inc, are dishonest and when confronted they told me to talk to the property owner, yet my contract was with them not the property owner. Better Business Bureau practices will be receiving a call from me. more

My enitre experience as a renter in San Luis Obispo with Cal-West has been way below par. First of all when I went to sign the lease I had to wait in the office for twenty minutes while both of the secretaries were on the phone/ answering phone calls in front of me without even aknowledging my presence. Then it took them another ten minutes to find my lease in a huge unorganized stack of files all the while acting annoyed, and did not even know what property I was talking about. Unless there is an emergency, like water flooding all over the floor, Cal-West is not too concerned about fixing property damage. Except when they decide to fix things and show up with no advanced warning, working outside with loud machinery at early hours of the weekend, blocking all tenant access to the driveway and surrounding street around the house. Besides having nothing in the lease about what the terms and conditions are for renewing the lease, Cal-West just expects tenants to know that if they do not receive notification in the mail about renewing the lease their lease will not be renewed, even after years of the lease being renewed and no justifiable reason for terminating the lease. When asked how tenants are suppossed to know about this policy they say ""It's our policy and you should just know"" even though it is not on the lease or on their website anywhere. Also, when new roommates move into the house Cal-West is too lazy to come to the property and inspect it themselves so they rely on the current and new tenants to assess the damages and dole out security deposits on their own. This leads to properties not being inspected or maintained by Cal-West for several years. I have rented from a few other real-estate companies in San Luis Obispo and Cal-West is by far the WORST. I would not reccommend them to other renters, nor home owners looking for a company to take care of their property. In the future I will never rent from Cal-West again. more