Northern Homes - Fairbanks, Alaska

Cassidy H.

*I’m sorry I know this is long, but I promise it’s got a lot of very important information*

I rented a dry cabin for about 6 months a little bit ago, and it was nothing but disaster after disaster. I had first looked at a different home, but they ended up giving it to someone else. They wanted to rent to me though, so they offered me a different home that wasn’t listed anywhere. Looking back, I know now that’s because they KNEW just how bad it was. I was incredibly wary when looking at it, but I had been looking for so long, I was ready to give up, and it was cheap.

When I first moved in, the walls were graffitied all over by the previous tenant. I didn’t mind, because I love to paint homes (and that’s what I did. I painted over all the graffiti and made the place presentable all on my own dime). An outlet was not working, a window wasn’t secured in the wall, and there was a hole in the bedroom ceiling that I was slightly worried about because it looked moldy. They assured me the ceiling wasn’t an issue, and they fixed the outlet and window fairly quickly.

Come winter time, I realized the windows were only single pane (one was plexiglass), and the door was crooked, and leaking air out INCREDIBLY quickly. Just to keep the house at a comfortable temperature and not -20, I went through an entire 20 gallon tank of propane within two weeks. I put in a request, and got no response. After some time, I messaged the landlord and was told nobody would be out soon, because they had fallen behind on paying their maintenance crew, and they were refusing to fix homes until they got caught up on payments. They eventually did come out, but the “fix” did not fix the issue. So I ended up having to fix it myself in -40 degree weather. Even after, I ended up not running my propane heater as much and instead had to constantly run two plug in heaters at all times to keep my cats from freezing while I was gone, and had a heated blanket at night because the bedroom was insulated even less (if at all).

I thought winter was bad though, SPRING was a thing of nightmares. EVERY wall was leaking. My ceiling was leaking in multiple places including (shocker) the hole in the ceiling I had questioned prior. I had buckets everywhere, and was soaking through towels like nobodies business. And in a dry cabin, that’s not a simple solvable problem. I had run out of clean towels by day 2. I had put in a request, and got NOTHING in return. And when I had messaged the landlord to ask about it, I got nothing back. I put in ANOTHER request not long after, because obviously, all the leaks had caused more mold to grow. The entire back door (that was sealed shut with spray foam because the back steps were completely rotted out) was covered in black mold. I still to this day have never heard anything back in regards to either of those issues.

I did end up talking to one of my neighbors at one point who told me he had been asking them to fix his leaking roof for FIVE YEARS because it was molding and they never did anything. I ended up becoming incredibly sick. So much so that I had to call out of work so often that I lost my job two months before I could move out.

There were also no fire alarms or CO2 detectors, and I was told it would take too long to get someone out to do it, and if it was important to me that I could go out and pay for them myself and get it taken out of rent (but have you seen the price of those things? It was either that or food for the week).

Granted, my rent was cheap. However, after rent, propane, and electric, and the costs associated with fixing things that they wouldn’t, I was basically paying the same amount for a nice studio apartment in town. And even so, NOTHING can excuse the lack of respect for their tenants and responsibility towards their homes. NOBODY should be subject to living in a biohazard just because we can’t afford something nicer.

Lenore B.

We have been renting a house from them for almost a year now. It has been such a struggle to get any repairs done on our home. We have complained about the garage door not working. It was opening up on its own even in the winter. It had opened on its own in the middle of the night one winter and we only realized it after it made the whole house freezing. I complained and they told me "its not on our priority list." I came home from work that day and the pipes had burst spewing water everywhere. They came to fix the pipes, but not the garage. We ended up buying the parts to fix it and fixed it ourselves. We took that money that was spent and took it out of our rent and sent them the receipt.

Now, our dishwasher has broke as well as our ceiling fan. The fan actually started shorting out the electricity in the living room and sparking. Its been a week and still no answer when we will have someone to take a look at it.

My recommendation, do not rent from them if you don't have to. If you do, hopefully you know how to fix everything yourself because they won't. Its not on their priority list...

Ajay J.

These people are very dishonest in there dealings with people. They rented us a place that had a great deal of problems, we had 2 separate sewage floods and they wouldn't help or have it repaired, so my wife and I did the repairs and the remodel with the promise of payment, we were forced to move due to black mold and when payment of the compensation was supposed to be paid we got stiffed. Dealing with these people has been a nightmare, and almost cost my wife and everything. No compassion or assistance during either emergencies. Our agent told us "geez I'm having a beer" when the second septic flood happened.

Tyler D.

I've lived in one of their rental units for about 7 years and they've always handled my wants and needs correctly, for the most part. At times their after-hours service # doesn't get picked up and you could be in a tough spot when it's -40°F. Apt got to low 50s and had to tough it out for the evening and called them the next morning and they sorted it out. That's the extreme case, but the tendency is that the service # doesn't get answered and you don't know if you've been heard as they don't call back often.

Overall through the 7 years it's been pleasant dealing with them and the 2-3 poor experiences I've had with them certainly doesn't mar their overall record.

Tonya B.

If I could give negative stars for this company I would. Moved into a house with zero cleaning done. I had to take down all blinds, re clean carpets. There was hair, nail clippings etc all over bathroom and in cabinets. When I got someone to finally come over because the window wouldn't close the repairman told me "you should be grateful you even have a house" as if my paying rent was some sort of privilege! Yard was covered in dog feces. Garage door would stay open which resulted in pipes freezing and bursting in the house and they tried to make us pay for it. We contacted the owner of the house and let him know we were giving notice and come to an agreement with him despite this company threatening him as well as us. STAY AWAY FROM NORTHERN HOMES. Btw, this was 5 years ago and I read reviews as recent as a month ago so they're clearly still screwing people over in the same way they screwed us

Dawn W.

Slumloards!!!!

They knowingly and willingly rented us a house with a leaky roof and mold problem. Over the span of two summers they never had the time to get it repaired and the mold just kept growing and they just kept on collecting rent.

We have been out of the biohazard for over a month now and no return on the deposit or statement from them on it. Check out the super-fun pictures of the leakiness. That water bubble was extra nice.

DO NOT RENT A HOUSE FROM THEM ON GREEN LEAF RD!!!!!!!!

Jovanna W.

I lived in one of their units for almost 3 years and I had a great experience working with them. They're very nice and understanding and have always done their best to satisfy my needs/wants. I would recommend renting from them for sure!

Eric L.

We couldn't have had a better experience with Northern Homes. They helped us with every step of the home buying process and everything went really smoothly. They're great!