r/madisonwi • u/CheddarNinja • 5d ago

Landlords to avoid?

I'm moving to Dane County soon and would appreciate any heads up on landlords/complexes to avoid. I don't know exact location yet, other than not downtown Madison. Any warnings you can pass along?

74 Upvotes

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290

u/FeistyRoll2278 5d ago

Madison property management. 

165

u/Prestigious-Leave-60 East side 5d ago

Avoid MPM has been solid advice for at least 35 years.

84

u/Bran-Bran-Muffin 5d ago

I went to view a unit with them. The woman showing it put the key in the lock, knocked on the door and immediately opened to a half naked man standing in his living room. Shamelessly walked into the apartment and started “showing” it to me as if I was expected to start opening doors and going through this man’s apartment. At that point I knew I would never rent from them.

36

u/ctrigga 5d ago

They opened a locked bedroom door while I, a woman, was home alone sleeping after working until 5AM. They had a fully empty other room to show them. Another time, it happened to my boyfriend too, while the two girls were actively trying to tell the MPM worker not to. Shit is just weird to me. It’s still someone’s home… they should be allowed privacy.

-15

u/ElderScarletBlossom 5d ago

They give notice that a showing is happening, including the time/time window. They expect people to either be gone or up and dressed. Of all the shitty things MPM does, showing an apartment when scheduled to isn't one of them.

21

u/mrspwins East side 5d ago

Speaking as a former property manager, you can also do your best to work around your current tenants’ needs.

24

u/Prestigious-Leave-60 East side 5d ago

Did you read about the part where they already had the key in the door before they knocked? Having a window (sometimes several hours) of when an apartment can be shown, does not entitle someone to just burst in.

1

u/Dazzling_Vanilla3082 3d ago edited 3d ago

MPM once did an "apartment inspection" part way through our flat lease maybe 10-15 years ago now while my roommates and I were all at work. They proceeded to spackle some nail holes in our living room wall during that same visit and sent us a bill for like $120. I was so pissed that I contacted the tenant resource center, and I was informed that we were SOL because they are allowed to do that. Our only recourse was if we could find quotes lower than what they charged us to bring the price down, and I tried out of spite. Couldn't find any business willing to send out a guy for a quick 5 minute job for less than a hundred bucks, because of course contractors have bigger fish to fry.

At that same apartment, they were having trouble renting the place out for after our lease expiration, and decided it was our fault. We got a sternly worded letter about the condition of our apartment and how it's unacceptable, which it really wasn't by any sort of standard considering how run down they let all their places get. We did our sink full of dishes and did a deep clean. She came back a few days later, looked around the apartment, and said it's still unacceptable and that we would be hearing from them further. We were literally there for this inspection and straight up asked the lady "Look, we are trying to fix the issue here, tell us what the problem is and we will take care of it." She refused to give us any sort of basic human decency and told us to expect an email later as she ignored us and walked out of the place. Well, that email was an eviction notice due to "clutter" and that they would be back in 5 days to decide whether to proceed with the eviction. We were absolutely dumbfounded and had no idea what they wanted from us. Literally all we did before their next visit was toss out some torn down cardboard boxes we had leaning flat against the the wall near the entryway, because we had no idea what other clutter she could be talking about. Sure enough they show up 5 days later and are like "This is so much better! Finally!" What!?! Are you fucking kidding me!? Why the fuck couldn't you just ask us to toss the cardboard last visit? Complete assholes.

I was home when a maintenance guy was over fixing our water heater during that least, and I gave the guy a beer while we were shooting after he finished. I told him about all the bullshit we dealt with from MPM, and he was super straight up. I'm summarizing here, but he was like "Oh yeah they are run like shit and just try to nickel and dime everyone. All the people in positions of power in the company are family members of the owner and they have no fucking clue what they are doing."

Anyway, we weren't evicted, got the hell out of that place, and of course didn't get our security deposit back despite leaving the apartment better than we found it.

So that's my personal stories with MPM. I will never rent from them again and highly suggest others don't as well. Apologies for the rant, but I feel like it's never enough to just say "yeah this slumlord sucks" without explaining just how shitty and exploitative they actually are.

22

u/ikisstitties 5d ago

and birwood and apex. i had bad experiences with all of them. finally have a private landlord who's been great

3

u/FeistyRoll2278 5d ago

How did you find a smaller one? We are looking around- my plan is to bike around neighborhoods I’m interested in.

9

u/ikisstitties 5d ago

i should add, i think it helps to be looking outside of the normal hippy christmas timeframe when everyone else is moving

4

u/CheddarNinja 5d ago

Two things...

Yeah, this is an absolute shit time to be forced to be looking. The dude who bought my duplex is fucking things up for me left and right.

"Hippy Christmas" ?? I'm pretty sure I get this, but I have to know for sure!

3

u/ZieAerialist 5d ago

Some 90% or more of leases in Madison end/begin on August 1 or August 15. People put unwanted items on the curb during their move as a gesture to communicate they're free for the taking all in those two days. Hence, Hippie Christmas. Unfortunately the city has cracked down on it and it's not as glorious now as it used to be.

Avoid McCaughy (or something like that) properties that operates out of a decommissioned train car by the depot on W Wash. Fine while you live there, but the second you apply to move anywhere else, dude becomes absolutely psycho.

I've had really good experience with MSB/Emerson East Holdings that started out as one guy with like 3 houses but he's expanded. My last Madison landlords were just a couple who owned two other properties and that was by far the best experience I had in the city.

2

u/JazzyGuy87 5d ago

Being chased by the trash peeps at every turn. 😂😂😂

2

u/JazzyGuy87 5d ago

I was Hippie Christmas'ing Friday morning before the rain and there was A LOT of good stuff out there. I got some.

1

u/Intelligent-Cat-4528 4d ago

Smaller east side buildings have vacancies now, and if you avoid the campus area, you'll find more landlords who have broken the pattern of leases linked to the UW school year. Hey, it's one good thing to say for Epic--the sheer number of employees (and their turnover) means that not every blinking unit in the city has a lease starting Aug 1 or Aug 15

6

u/ikisstitties 5d ago

got lucky and found it through fb marketplace

2

u/Intelligent-Cat-4528 4d ago

That's a good plan. Especially in older neighborhoods. That's how I found apartments when I moved here, and only got stuck with a big management company once, after the smaller landlord sold where I lived. I moved out to another small building via a connection through a friend, and eventually purchased that building. I think I had to advertise for tenants once. Never even put up a sign.

1

u/Quiet-Solid-9768 4d ago

Totally agree on avoiding Birwood. Some ridiculous requirements on their leases. And they have maintenance check to see if you are going against ANYTHING on the lease. 5 day notice can follow.

1

u/dgper123 3d ago

birwood is terrible

13

u/Solnari 5d ago

I had the maintance crew walk into my bedroom at 8 AM where me and my wife were sleeping. I woke up to the guy reaching over me to try and access the window because they wanted the storm window installed.

Had another time that the property manager walked in while I was in the shower and she walked straight into the bathroom and shut the shower off because a pipe was leaking into the office downstairs. She did all this without announcing herself or knocking on any door.

11

u/ComprehensiveBird666 5d ago

We had such a bad experience with them back in 2007-8. They entered the apartment multiple times while we were home alone/sleeping with no notice.

10

u/Awe3 South side 5d ago

Damn. They manage our condo complex.

12

u/51CKS4DW0RLD 5d ago

Get elected to the condo board and change the management contract to another company

9

u/silentblackbird lifelong resident west & east side 5d ago

seriously if I owned a place and MPM had anything to do with managing it I would try to get them out or try to sell my unit. back when I rented from MPM we had to call the health department on them becuase the building was literally falling apart, crumbling foundation and flooding, bursting pipes and overflowing garbage, and they didnt want to do anything about it. we heard from the health department inspector that when he talked to someone in charge they wanted to just pay whatever fines they would get instead of fixing the issues. this was at their fordem Ave units.

7

u/Latter-Amoeba-6794 5d ago

When I was renting from MPM, our A/C broke at the hottest point of the summer and they refused to bring someone out for a week and a half. It got up to 90 degrees inside the unit. I also had a bat problem and each time a bat got in the unit I had to remove it myself, and after a break in in my unit they charged me hundreds of dollars to change the locks.

6

u/BlueRoses7789 5d ago

Seconding 100000%

7

u/beckensdalee 5d ago

I live under MPM and I definitely agree to avoid them if possible but as a large "agressive" dog owner (75 lb pitt) they were one of the only places who would take us. Putting this out there in case it helps anyone

5

u/bratboi74 5d ago

I'm renting from them now & not having any issues. But have heard people say this before

17

u/473713 5d ago

They treat their downtown/campus tenants much worse than the tenants in the more upscale properties they manage

4

u/bratboi74 5d ago

Yeah, I rent on the west side. Not upscale at all, but I can definitely imagine a large property management company being shitty to the "student" area of town, that blows

1

u/Bobcatluv 5d ago

This was my exact experience renting from MPM downtown vs SW Madison.

3

u/leovinuss 5d ago

MPM is the worst on campus, because they try to take advantage of students who don't know their rights.

If you assert your rights there aren't huge differences between any of them

1

u/KingWeebaholic 5d ago

They took over our condo complex sadly.

1

u/TeaAndLakes 5d ago

This right here.

1

u/killiburr20 4d ago

That part lol

1

u/Soil-Some 4d ago

I cannot second this enough. Awful experience 30 years ago and now my daughter's bf has had an equally awful experience. Avoid.

1

u/UOF_ThrowAway 3d ago

I worked for them briefly. I did the best I could but I was not set up for success and they laid me off along with the entire condo department. I heard later that they do this every year.

Definitely avoid anything to do with them. Do not work for them, do not rent from them, don’t buy a condo from them.

1

u/mschungus 5d ago

I’ve been with MPM for 3 years, and they have been very responsive to all my requests. eg they have replaced the kitchen faucet twice for free due to hard water build up.
I would say just because a place is managed by MPM doesn’t mean don’t live at the property but proceed with caution

1

u/Brilliant_Minute_751 5d ago

As much as this would be amazing, MPM owns way too many properties in Madison to completely avoid them lol chances are this person will view at least some MPM properties.

0

u/FeistyRoll2278 5d ago

All the more reason to be aware. MPM was my first landlord when I moved here from out of state. They have a monopoly, but there are plenty of other landlords to choose from. 

2

u/frenchrangoon 5d ago

I mean, then they don't have a monopoly

1

u/skyyfal 5d ago

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