My fiancee found out today (well, we suspected for a while now but today gives us a bit of proof) that her apartment owners are out to screw her out of as much money as they can even if said money does not go to them.
She moved in on the fourth of May with a four-month lease.
1) The apartment complex doesn't accept check or cash - she has to go to the drug store across the street to buy a cashier's check. The alternative is to pay with debit. The credit processor charges more for the transaction than the drug store does for the cashier's check. Regardless of what she does, she has to pay more than her lease says rent is just to pay said rent.
2) She was told last week that the apartment place has been paying for her gas and electric (water and sewage are paid - she has to take care of these) for the entirety of her stay so far. Apparently they're not only incompetent but stupid. They "didn't know" that they were paying her utilities. They're going to ask for the cost of the bills as well as a charge to cover their incompetence. I would think they would have told her how to get the bills sent to her when she moved in, but they didn't.
3) As she's only got a few months left, she's not going to get her deposits back from the utility companies. That's an extra $100 or so at each place. That's right, $100 to click a few buttons in whatever program the utility company is using just to make an account so that she may give them even more of her money.
4) The apartment complex has a number of large buildings. Each building has four apartments in it. In the entry of each building is a bank of four mailboxes. In order to send mail, you... place the mail that you want to send right out in the open on top of the mailboxes. If you think that's as mindfuckingly stupid as it sounds, you can place the mail inside your mailbox with a note telling the mailman to take the fucking mail that's in there just like they do in every other place ever.
5) She told them today that she's only got two months of her lease left. Again, they're incompetent and need you to remind them sixty days before your lease ends or, guess what, more charges for you. In turn, she was told that she has more time than that. You may have noticed that I said she moved in on the fourth. Their billing period starts on the first, meaning the entire first month she stayed there wasn't a "real" month and thus doesn't count toward her lease. That means she either 1) gets to pay an entire month of rent that she didn't expect, or 2) gets to pay an entire month of rent plus a $500 charge for breaking her lease.
This is leaving out some of the minor rages. They didn't fix her apartment before she moved in. The AC was broken during 100+ degree conditions and the fridge didn't work. Then she got home after work one day to find various appliances on that she didn't turn on - someone who works at the complex had come in without telling her that and snooped around for whatever. Nothing was taken.
I've begun looking up tenant protection laws for my state, but every government website I've been to in my life has been broken to the point of uselessness.
Also, my AC is broken in my car (just like everything else in the piece of crap). I get to drive three hours to see her in 100+ degree weather. Seems kind of minor in comparison.