On February 2nd 2017 I signed a lease beginning on February 15th 2017 and ending on February 28th 2018. On the day the lease was signed, which was the same day the property was toured, Mr Radford informed me that the property was freshly painted and this was why there was no bathroom or bedroom doors installed, but they would be installed by the time I moved in roughly two weeks later. After repeatedly asking and nagging on my part to the property manager Jeanie we finally had a bathroom door installed on April 29th. But this door was haphazardly installed, it didn’t align with the door jam, nor did it fully close. Measurements were taken for bedroom doors, but to this day there still are no bedroom doors. When I moved in I found paint cans and pain trays stored in the over as I was first using it. The fridge was also filled with a molding pizza and half a 2-liter of soda. The fridge was easily a thirty year old model that had shelves duct-tapped. It quit working within the first week of April, I notified the property manager. It took three weeks to have it replaced, but the replacement had multiple recalls. As a result the replacement fridge didn’t work, it caused my milk to curdle in a day and froze my bottle of vodka. It took another three weeks to replace the replacement fridge. During this time I had my small kitchen filled with two broken refrigerators as the property manager refused to remove them.

In March I discovered a drowned mouse in my washing machine after I had used it. I informed Jeanie and she said she would send an exterminator, which never happened. Later that month I found out that the room Mr. Radford had claimed to not open [which was connected to my bedroom] was actually a “storage room” filled with a dresser, entertainment stand, night stand, mattress, old TV, and a door covered in black mold which didn’t close or lock and led directly to outside. This room was also entirely uninsulated and contained my furnace, which would explain why my electric bills were $400 dollars. I informed the property manager and asked her to have the contaminated items removed and the room secured since I felt unsafe having a non-locking door right beside my bedroom. She promised to have someone check it out and, again, to this day the items are still there and the black mold covered-door is still unsecured.

In April the window in my room fell out of the window frame. It took two days to have someone “fix” it only to be informed by the window repair company that the window was the wrong size for the window frame, they said this was likely to happen again if I used the window at all. This caused me to keep it closed during the hottest time of the year on top of having no air conditioning. In fact I was afraid to open any window in the unit afraid the same thing would happen and I would be stuck with exposed window frames.

In late September all of the light bulbs in the home blew at once. Most of the light bulbs had a frosted glass-type globe fixture. When the fixture in the bedroom was slightly touched the entire fixture fell from the ceiling and was hanging from the wires. The light fixture hadn’t been properly installed and wasn’t secured with any screws, rather all shortcuts possible had been taken. These fixtures actually had insulation stuffed on the backside of them. I found out every light fixture was just like the one in my bedroom.

Throughout the first six weeks of living at this unit the water pipes regularly froze. I was told by the property manager to “wait it out” but every time the temperatures dipped the pipes would freeze again. This was routine, I had to rough it and visit my family [over an hour away in Bedford] just to take showers. At the end of December and beginning of January 2018 the water froze again. On December 30th I only had cold water, on December 31st there was no water whatsoever [despite trying to raise the temperature in the unit and leave the faucet dripping]. On January 9th 2018 the pipes burst after thawing and I notified the property manager. There has been no running water since then. During this time the entire bathroom has been torn apart including holes in the wall leaving exposed plumbing. The toilet and sink have been removed at random intervals, as well as the stove in the kitchen. At no point during all this was I notified of these removals or “repairs”. This unit has been uninhabitable for the entire month of January. I paid rent for this month and Radford Companies has refused to refund me or provide adequate shelter during the attempted repairs as stipulated by Virginia tenant law. During these “repairs” the unit was left unlocked, eventually resulting in a stray, sick, flea-covered cat wandering inside the unit. It ruined many of my possessions as it defecated, urinated, and spread fleas across the unit. As this happened a crew member tracked in mud all over the unit, they halfheartedly attempted to clean it with my personal cleaning supplies but didn’t replace the used items. They damaged my kitchen table from leaving heavy tools, and pieces of the new water heater on it for extended periods of time.

The property manager Jeanie has been rude, nasty, uncooperative, and embarrassingly unprofessional this entire time. She has refused to provide me her full name or assist me in any manner. She has given me false promise after false promise, and used predatory, illegal practices regarding my residence. Despite all of this I have paid my rent on time every time. I am questioning whether I should pay my last month’s rent having not received what I am legally entitled to for adequate shelter that I had already paid for. Radford Companies even had the gall to issue me a water bill on top of all of this. The property manager has repeatedly ignored my calls and texts as I have tried to find a working solution to these problems and no one can be found at the Radford Companies’ office to answer my questions. They are forcing me to take further action.

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