Darian Balcom
4

Pittsburgh, PA

4.0
1 Reviews
Management
3.0
Rental Unit
5.0
Living Experience
4.0
All Reviews (1)
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Darian was awful to rent from. She was s...
Darian was awful to rent from. She was sweet and responsive throughout the apartment search and before lease signing, as well as during the first few months of us renting from her. We rented a two bedroom unit in a private two-unit building that we were in love with. Unfortunately, Darian made us feel very uncomfortable and breached our privacy on multiple occasions. First, she would come to the house unannounced and go through our trash and then proceed to email us with any comments about the trash. For example, we once had a small cardboard box that got mixed into a bag of regular trash. She emailed us stating that she was displeased with a recyclable item in our regular trash and then proceeded to charge us $15 for the "violation". After this, she forced us to sign an agreement stating that she would charge us a fee if we did not sort out our recycling in the future. If we didn't sign the agreement, she threatened to evict us. After months of bonkers phone calls and unannounced visits, our lease was up and we decided to move out. A few months ahead of time, I asked for a moving out checklist to ensure that we met her expectations and had a chance to get our security deposit back. She declined and instructed us to just make sure it was clean. I asked again for clarification and she did not respond to my request. Upon moving out, we thoroughly cleaned every inch of the apartment, filled holes and painted over them, and did everything in our power to blindly meet her cleanliness expectations. We hadn't heard anything after almost a month after moving out, and after initiating contact with her, she finally responded with a lengthy list of what she stated she had to clean. Darian threatened that if we argued with her claims that she would charge us almost $800 on top of the security deposit. Of course, we just wiped our hands clean and decided not to argue the loss of the deposit. We recently found out that she's been arrested for breaking into homes and "rescuing" animals among various other arguably unstable actions. She would constantly remind us that she worked in an attorney's office in the past and knew her way around the legal system. I don't like to make assumptions, but as a mental health professional, she seems very manic and unpredictable.
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