Complaint History & Business Rating for Drucker + Falk - Richmond VA

Chocolata C. says: They evict tenants without court orders GREED

J M. says: Ever since Drucker & Falk took over the management of the Governours Square (since renamed The Preserve at Pine Valley) apartment complex in Wilmington, NC, it's been blatantly obvious that all this company cares about is squeezing every single dime possible out of the tenant. For example, they immediately removed water and sewer service from being included in the lease, and installed water meters without notifying the residents that they were going to do so, and as a result, we had no water for 2 days. No warning, no notice...just no water for a couple of days, followed by a notice (after the fact) that they had been installing water meters and residents would be charged for water and sewer upon their next lease renewal. That's only the first thing they did. Of course they have steadily been raising the rent since they took over and using the extra money for cosmetic improvements rather than anything that benefits the residents. An example would be the brand new office furniture in the leasing office, brand new signage...all flashy things to create the illusion that this is a nice place to rent. However, the office staff is rude and condescending, and consistently act like they are superior to you. If you have a maintenance issue, it most likely will not be fixed quickly or right the first time, which is most likely because they only have one maintenance employee who is spread too thin. Drucker & Falk has taken what was once the best place to rent in Wilmington (best value for your money, caring staff, more than one maintenance person, quick and easy repairs to maintenance issues, consistent pest control and filter changes, regular resident events that people actually wanted to go to) and turned it into an overpriced, internally rundown, miserable place to live. Basically, they made it like all the other apartment complexes in Wilmington. I had chosen this complex because it was different, and now it's just like all the brand new places being built, except it's *not* brand new and no amount of "dog parks" (a fenced in area is all it actually is) or expensive new playground equipment (absolutely nothing was wrong with the old) is going to change the fact that the buildings need maintenance. The buildings themselves need to be taken care of. But since that is not visible from the outside to new prospective tenants, D & F doesn't care about that. Let's just make cosmetic improvements so we can "justify" charging higher rent and treating long term residents who try to pay their rent early like they are scum. They refused to accept my rent check for December because I had dated it for December 1st, the day it is due! This was never a problem until today. I tried to explain to the snotty young woman who works in the office that the reason I was doing this is because today might be the only day off I get before the 1st (I'm a mail carrier, and it is about to be the holiday season...need I say more?) and I just wanted to make sure my rent wasn't late. I do not trust the online payment system and am not going to register for an online account because of how prevalent hacking is these days, not to mention that I just plain do not trust these people with my banking information. Denae was very curt with me and said the office is open 7 days a week...which is all fine and dandy, except during the holiday season at the post office...when most of the time I can expect to be working not only 7 days a week, but also well past office hours, and yes, this does include Sundays, thanks to Amazon Prime packages. So...apparently I will have to ask a neighbor to take my rent down to the office on the 1st for me while I am at work, since the staff was so rude and insistent that I cannot give them a post-dated check a week early. (Even though I have done this literally for years, it was never an issue until today, and the rent is not even actually *due* until the 1st.) I wouldn't be surprised if they refuse to accept it being dropped off by a neighbor as well. Anything to get a late fee out of me is probably what they're aiming for, since I refuse to give them free online access to my bank account, and even though I always pay my rent on time and if I think I won't be able to, I make arrangements to pay *early*. This, in theory, should be the type of tenant they would want to keep, but evidently they'd rather find ways to get more money out of me. I guess they need to get every penny they can so they can make more frivolous cosmetic improvements and lure more suckers into renting from them until they, too, realize that it's all just a smoke and mirrors illusion to get their money and then provide terrible service.