K & S Company, Inc. - Albany, California

Jacob

Poorly managed with unprofessional administrative staff. In particular, Anna Corona was consistently dismissive, rude, and selectively responsive. She frequently ignored emails and avoided specific questions I explicitly asked her to address in her replies, making every process unnecessarily difficult. During my move-out process, it was difficult to get her to address inquiries regarding my security deposit and especially about the rent K&S charged for the month /after/ I had already vacated the unit.

Additionally, despite my clear requests to be present during any entry into my apartment, the property manager let himself into my unit- even after arranging to personally let him in, he used his own key without my consent.

The only positive aspect of my experience was that maintenance requests were handled quickly, though I've heard this is not always the case. Based on my experiences, I would encourage renters to look elsewhere.

Tiffany C.

UPDATE: we took K&S to small claims court for wrongfully keeping the security deposit and we WON. The property manager had the nerve to scoff in my face when I delivered the demand letter prior to the court summons.

Would give 0 stars if I could. My friend and I rented a 2bedroom 1bath unit for 1 year and the people in the K&S office are so dismissive, irresponsible, and unprofessional. The unit appeared to be furnished well but after we moved in, we discovered that one of the bedroom windows wasn't even sealed into the window-frame, causing wind and rain to come in and necessitating excessive usage of the heater. Which, by the way, didn't work either. Repairs take forever, and it's not the maintenance person's fault, it's the office's fault for the lack of coordination. It's a stupidly awful experience for such a steep price.

Even after we moved out, we had to deal with wrongful reductions to the security deposit, wherein the relevant people were incredibly rude and slow to respond. It seems like their strategy regarding monetary disputes is to tire you out with weeks of back + forth and unclear communication, so you just give up and drop the dispute. Anyway please rent from another company, K&S will drain you of your hopes, dreams, and money.

If you do rent from here, DOCUMENT ALL OF YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH THE STAFF. When calling, make sure to send a follow-up email so you have a record of what was said. Don't be afraid to ask to speak to someone else if the person on the phone is being obnoxious.

Alex W.

The staff is incredibly friendly, efficient, and accommodating. Anna helped make our move-in experience very smooth and was always available to answer questions. K&S also responds very quickly to work requests, allowing us to schedule maintenance at the soonest convenient time. Thanks to K&S, our first renting experience has been incredibly positive, I would recommend!

Hugh M. S.

I'm a UC Berkeley student and needed a place to stay for sophomore year. K&S made it easy to find an apartment right in southside and move in smoothly. The place was clean and issues left by the previous tenants were fixed quickly when we told customer service about them. Friendly staff, great place, highly recommend!

Jay K.

I recently transferred my lease to move out, and the experience was horrible. I found a new tenant for the place by myself, and she was eager to move forward, but K&S was remarkably unresponsive and constantly delayed the process. Anna Corona in particular is one of the slowest and rudest people I’ve ever interacted with. She gave us the wrong information on an upcoming rental change, furniture agreement, and was very rude to the prospective tenant. After over a month of repeated emails and calls because they would not answer our simple questions and move the application process along for the new tenant, we finally transferred the lease and got the hell out.

And of course, after I’d sent them my new address multiple times in big bold letters, K&S was impressively incompetent and addressed checks and documents for me to the address I had just moved out of... I urge everyone who’s looking to rent in the Bay Area to avoid this company that has no sympathy for the several families that depend on timely communication and basic competence.

On another occasion, K&S knew about an issue with my unit’s utility bill and hid it until I made a case with the Berkeley Rent Board. Basically, my building charges the entire house’s electricity/gas to my unit’s meter since K&S is too cheap to install another meter properly. They neglected to tell me this and wanted me to pay for the whole property’s electricity and gas until I contacted the Berkeley Rent Board. This action forced them to reimburse me in full for the utility charges incurred during the 3 years I lived there, though my final month’s utility check is still outstanding. That was thousands of dollars in bills that they would have otherwise happily saddled a college student with (at least until they were threatened by the government).

Also, never pay your rent in advance. They posted an eviction notice on my door. I called them saying they already had the next 3 month of rent and it realized that they did. They didn’t even apologize for that fiasco.

Kevin K.

We have not had a working washing machine in our apartment complex for about 6 months. They’ve claimed for months they’re buying a new one but nothing yet. This is both unethical and immoral. I highly recommend avoiding renting from or working with this company

Erick M.

I’ve lived in a K&S building over a year now and have not had a single thing to complain about. Had a severe plumping issue in my bathroom and K&S took this as an urgent matter and had someone working on it within two hours. Their office is really good at having someone readily available if need to call and their staff is always willing to help whether it be small or big. Lucky to be at a K&s building.

Turquoise W.

I wish I could give negative 10 stars! We've been waiting for repairs for over 6 months.
2 bdrm 2 bath unit and can only use 1 bathroom as the master bathroom is inoperable due to a large hole in the tub. The actions they've taken so far in getting the repairs done, they sent a vendor out only to take photos, twice. Why do you need to send the same guy out 2 different times to take the same photos!? Oh ya, to waste time and stall the actual repairs.

I cannot wait u til time allows us to get out of this unit! I don't even think this unit is up to code. Lose outlets don't hold a plug at all and sparks everytime to try to plug something in or fix the hanging plug. Major drafts in the unit making my pge higher than it should be. None of this seems to be a concern of the property management and I have done my due diligence in remaining in communication (they rarely respond back) and following up on these maintenance requests and still here I am 6 months later.

How is this even legal?