Sam Dougherty

Review of Colegrove Management Associate...

I'm a college student in Bozeman, and my first off...

I'm a college student in Bozeman, and my first off-campus living experience was with Management Associates. I give the company a FAIR to GOOD rating for a few reasons in particular. The employees that my roommate and I interacted with over our year-long lease were friendly. We liked Monique especially for her genuine concern. However, there were some speed bumps as far as maintenance and management. We had a basement apartment, but when looking online for properties the website had pictures of the exterior around the corner of our upstairs neighbors, giving the illusion online that it wasn't a basement apartment. This may sound like a small thing, but when rental units are being picked up in less than an hour of posting during the spring, taking time to tour a house you thought was something else is big. We took the basement anyway.

A month into the school year our boiler burst and my bedroom and the kitchen was under 2 inches of water. How rental agencies handle these situations is their defining moment in my opinion. My roommate and I did all we could to help, including buying our own wet-dry vacuum to get rid of the standing water and clean the carpets. We called Management and they sent over one of their handymen, who said our boiler was broken, pressed a few buttons, and left saying we needed a plumber. Thus began our month and a half of no hot water or heat. It was obvious we needed a new boiler from the start, and the plumbers sent by management were instructed only to do "quick fixes", which frustrated both us and the plumbers, who knew how to fix it correctly but couldn't because Management didn't want to buy a new boiler. Turns out the boiler in our place was recalled in 2003 for carbon monoxide leaks. These quick fixes would heat our water for 10 minutes before breaking again, so we were forced to shower at the gym for a month and a half. Our ongoing joke was we had 3 people living in the house: Myself, my Roommate, and the Plumber.

Once the snow started falling and we still didn't have heat, Management had our fireplace inspected and lent us electric heaters, which was a redeeming quality in my opinion. The boiler was finally replaced, and we requested to pay only half of rent for the next month for our troubles, which was granted. Again, another redeeming quality.

Things went well for the rest of the year, until I went in to sign off of the lease. In late April, I gave my 30 day notice and went home for the summer while my roommate decided to renew the lease with someone else. In early July, I get a call saying that I had never turned in a notice and was still on the lease. In JULY. Through a lot of phone calls it was determined that they lost my notice, so I had to turn in another. This wasn't very funny to me, seeing as though I was liable for that house because they lost my notice (after I had signed it in front of them) for months after I believed I was off the lease. Good thing nothing was stolen or vandalized during that time.

My advice for anyone renting through Management Associates is stay in incredibly close contact with the office, pay your rent in person each month and update them with what's happening with your property, inspect all your utilities upon arrival and demand a complete fix from the start, and finally to make a copy or take a picture of all correspondence and paperwork to and from the company. If agreements are made over the phone try to get it in writing for your records as well. Management Associates has so many properties it's easy to get lost in the shuffle.

Management Associates is friendly, and they try.