verify if a poster has been evicted
If someone is evicted than naturally they are going to try and diminish the property's reputation because they are disgruntled. I am sure that many people read the comments but have you ever thought of the people who actually write the comments? This website reminds me of ratemyprofessor.com because only people who had the absolute best or absolute worst experience are going to comment, and usually it is the ladder. If you ask an individual whose fault it is that they are or have been evicted, the majority of them will say that it is the landlords fault. Perhaps you could try to verify a commenter’s credentials by running their name through the public court access websites that exist in many states in order to see if they have been evicted or filed on for eviction. I understand that an idea of this magnitude would require far more diligence on your behalf but the accuracy of your content would improve dramatically. I am sure this will not happen but if there is a slight chance that somebody in your organization happens to read this than some good may come of it.
Here is a link to Manager Center: https://www.apartmentratings.com/manager/register/userinfo
You can respond to reviews but ApartmentRatings doesn’t get involved in management-resident disputes.
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zpregional commented
I could not agree more. Businesses like our are bound by laws, fair housing and landlord/tenant amoung others, that require we deal with our tenants in equal and fair ways. We must follow the rules and policies equally for everyone. Over and over, this site gives a voice to those who break their leases, house illegal pets that do damage, don't pay rent and do drugs, on and on. When we enforce our policies within the laws and throw them out, then we get these outrageous hits on your site that are patently untrue. My lease is getting ridiculously long because I have to go over and over the policies of the property and have them initial everything. It doesn't stop anyone from spouting off about how "unfair" it is because they broke the rules and we wouldn't let them off the hook about it. There should at least be a mechanism where the property can provide the proper info for you to remove the posting.
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griffinassociatesrealtors commented
Excellent points! Our company recently experienced the same situation, a tenant moved out, did hundreds of dollars of damage to the unit and the security deposit disbursement reflectted this. In addition to the lease & addendum the tenant signed, the tenant was sent a move out punch list to review, and given a chance to hire vendors to repair the damage done by the tenant., After receiving good reviews of the property
( where the majority of our tenants come from referrals) our rating dropped significantly. The bad review isn't a big deal, this is going to happen, but there should be a way to verify the information submitted. -
I agree musiclily. I actually work at one of the apartment buildings on this site and there is a distinct possibility that a tenant who got fined for trashing up the place and has left could come on here and say all manner of evil. He might have already and I am sure many other bad tenants have done exactly that. The only way for this site to really work is for this site to require a lot of accurate information from anyone who posts here so it can verify the validity of what they say. The honor system will not work here because too many people are willing to commit slander when they know they will never have to pay for it.
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musiclily commented
I agree! On a certain apartment building review page ALL of the bad reviews are those from tenants who have been evicted for heavy partying, one was for getting drunk and harrassing tenants and the others were because they didn't pay their rent. So they come here and ruin an apartments reputation.