Very poor experience at 130 Edith Street, State College, PA 16803

Posted 5 years ago

To anyone looking to rent housing in the State College, Pennsylvania area, I strongly recommend avoiding Nittany Rentals (privately-run by landlord Greg Miller), not to be confused with the many other rental services with "Nittany" in their names. The main complaints we had renting from Greg Miller included (1) negligence in addressing mold infestations and other maintenance issues, (2) extremely disrespectful treatment of tenants, (3) financial unreasonability, and (4) a lease that we felt did not sufficiently protect tenants from potentially abusive landlord behavior. These issues are detailed below. To be clear, this is NOT a personal rant against Greg Miller or his business; however, I do feel the responsibility to save prospective renters out there from the bad experiences we had. After moving into our house, we noticed a widespread mold infestation developing around the windows, air conditioner, and baseboard throughout the house. After notifying Greg, he simply told us to "use bleach" to deal with the problem, and never followed up on the issue after that. We bought a pricey air filter to alleviate mold allergies, but we still had to repeatedly clean large mold outbreaks year-round for the remainder of our lease. After discovering mold had gotten into our mattresses (and buying a replacement mattress set), we notified Greg, but he made us wait months before removing the mattresses from the house (he still wanted to keep them but delayed in removing them from the house). During our first winter we realized the house was extremely drafty and poorly insulated, but Greg told us we would just have to seal up the house on our own, which we did, incurring all associated costs ourselves. Toward the end of our lease, after we had recevied little/no attention to previous maintenance issues, two drains that had been occasionally slow suddenly clogged completely. We went straight to him again, and after telling us to buy and use chemicals to unclog it ourselves, we did so, and along with some minor plunging, repaired the problem the night after. Unfortunately, earlier that day Greg came in (unannounced) while we were at work and saw that at that point the drains were still plugged. The next day, after we had cleared the drain, he again came in unannounced and poured more chemical down the already-cleared drain (not a big deal, although we could have told him the drain was now clear if he'd notified us he was coming to deal with it). However, he came to the house one evening several days later and almost immediately began shouting at us for trying to clear the drain on our own. When I defended our actions, he shouted, "This discussion is over!" before leaving the house in a huff. Greg occasionally came into the house completely unannounced while we were at home in the evenings, as well as when we were away for work (as evidenced by the above situation). When Greg asked us if we wanted to extend our lease since he did not have renters to replace us, we agreed, and settled on a new lease end date about two weeks earlier in the month to make it easier for him to find summer tenants. We believed that we would only pay 1/2 month's rent the last month, or stay the extra 2 weeks we'd paid for if he ended up not finding new tenants at that point. However, he demanded that we be out by that date (not unexpected, considering it was the new lease end date) but gave no compensation for the extra 2 weeks we had paid. This was a loss of 412 dollars. My roommate, an international visitor to State College from Spain, ended up needing to fly home to Spain one week after our lease's new end. Since we had already paid for two more weeks, and since he had no place to stay for the one week he needed, he asked Greg if he could stay for that week before going home, as long as Greg didn't have new tenants moving in. This seemed reasonable, considering he'd already paid for that week (plus an additional one). Greg didn't consent, forcing my roommate to try to find a place to live for that one week. Unfortunately, it seemed that the lease that Greg Miller provided us did not put much responsibility on the landlord, and if we'd been more experienced renters we may have seen warning signs of this sooner. Overall, Greg was generally friendly on a personal level, at least initially, and is certainly not the worst landlord that one could have in State College; for most of our lease we had a decent relationship. However, his inattention to addressing problems (especially the mold), eventual hostility and seeming unfairness, and the lack of protection provided by his lease, can all set the renter up for a poor experience. I strongly suggest pursuing other housing options (there are better ones in the area, I've had other great landlords!). Best of luck to prospective renters and enjoy your time in State College!

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