Cato Realty

This man is a scam. I just moved out of his home. I moved in 9/19/2018. He charged me a late fee for the prorated month I moved in. Than he called me 2 weeks later after I moved in threatening me with eviction. He wont write you no receipts. The home is infested with roaches and chick monks come through the chimney. He is very rude and unprofessional. He put a immediately vacate Typed letter in my mailbox for no reason. He filed eviction and did not show up in court. I moved out 11/17/2018 and he already listed the property for rent while I was living in the unit. He kept all my security deposit and will not answer or text me back. Please don't waste your time or money. He also did this to others. Please do your research on this man before making a decision. This man is a scam to keep your deposit money. Stay away!

Myself and two others where trying to rent a house on walker Ave from Don C after submitting our application Don told the other roomate that we had to pay for the house to have electricity in advance the roomate paid him and then we were told that he would contact us about moving after numerous calls to Don we kept getting the same run around that he was busy showing house he told us this every hour no matter what time we called I tried calling him my parents called as well as my Roomate's and their parents all with the same result Don hanging up the phone call. I'm not even sure if Don C is a licensed realtor I believe this is a scam artist. After reading several reviews about Don I'm glad we weren't able to rent the house from him I believe it saved us from many more problems in the future. We would like a refund for the money we put down however the main reason for this complaint is to warn others of Don. The biggest problem I have is that I gave Don a lot of sensitive information on my application and now I'm worried about where that information may end up.

There are much mold and mildew in the basement and the stress of him harassing me and sneaking up onto my porch delivering notes to me from the stress I've been having so many seizures from the stress. and my breathing has gotten worse too from the mold and meldew from when it rains the basement floods and it sets into the mud not having any where to go. plus my boyfriend and I froze cause the house wasn't insulated and my gas bill was over $406.00 and it was set on 75. The Electric was over $200.00 also for the month of Jan. when it was 9 degrees outside , it was only 25 degrees in the house so my boyfriend and I got really sick in Jan.. He's suing us for the damage already done to the foundation before we moved in saying, " I Ran a Hose into the basement." which isn't true. I found out that he bullies and takes advantage of college kids, trying to get as much money has he can from them by accusing them of damages that was already there with the house.Also the maintaince people just walk right into the house without notice so I had to change the locks on all the doors.This guy is a bully, and a low life that tries to take advantage of people for his own gain.He also trying to sue me and my boyfriend for wood that was left on the property that he paid some guys to chop down a tree in back yard and they left the wood.He needs to sue the people he paid to take that wood away and didn't , Not me.just an example of him trying to get as much as possible out of people with threats.And the Building Inspector's name is ***, cell no.*** has a list of all the things that were already wrong in the house.

If you have a choice of renting from Don C or living in a box… live in a box. I rented from Don for about two years, because he did not disclose that the lease was a 13 month lease ( completely my fault, because I did not catch it in the contract) but who does a 13 month lease – this should have been my first red flag that he was sneaky. Don is the laziest landlord you will ever come in contact with. If you have any maintenance issues – just plan on them either a) not getting done or 2) getting done weeks or months later. For example:
1. the roof in my apartment leaked multiple times, - dripping water across the entire length of the living room. When Don was called, his typical response would be “ I will send someone over to take care of it”. Weeks would go by before someone would fix it and it only took them 8 months to patch up the ceiling. Never mind that my new furniture now had water damage.
2. Occasionally, the hot water would go out in the apartment I rented. I would say this happened 2-3 times in the roughly two years I lived there. I would inform Don of this and he would tell me it would get fixed. Each time, I ended up having to go to the gym in the morning to shower as it took them about two weeks to get the hot water fixed.
3. Dish Washer – broken fro about 2 months before it was fixed.
At some point I had enough with Don and his laziness and decided to start looking to buy a home. I informed Don of this multiple months before I started getting serious about buying a home and he told me “ I will work with you and we will figure something out if you find an home.” Well the day came and I bought a house. I again informed Don that I was going to move out and the closing date was about two months away. To which Don told me “ I will do my best to find a tenant but you will have to pay until I do”. I get this and under his contract I had to pay, I am an adult and I understand this logic so I continued to pay my rent in the hopes that Don would find someone.
Realizing how much of a sleazy person this landlord is, I would have friends make cold calls to Don and inquire about the apartment. He would sometimes tell them that the apartment was available but on other instances he would tell them that the apartment was not available and had been rented.
Now for the kicker…. At the beginning of one of the months, after I had moved out I received a text message from someone who still lived in the complex telling me that there was a couple moving into my apartment- DON HAD NEVER TOLD ME THAT HE RENTED MY APARTMENT! I can only assume as much that he expected me to pay that months rent ( I did not) I called, emailed and texted Don about this multiple times without him ever replying to me to give me an explanation.
Additionally, once I received my security deposit about 90 days after I handed in my keys ( legally it is 30 days). I received a charge for $250 as a “ Release Fee” – Release Fee? You just rented my apartment to someone ( and didn’t even tell me), you didn’t “ Release me”
Take my advice, please do not waste your time or hard earned money on any property that has Cato Realty attached to it. I promise you that you will be sorry in the end.

After renting from this landlord for a year and a half, we do not recommend anyone rent from him. Here were the main issues:
-Under the guise of being “busy” or “forgetful,” he often does not disclose fees or costs beforehand and expects you to have known about them from the start. For example, when we moved into the property, he offered a move-in date three days earlier than the lease start date. He did not tell us until the day we arrived that he would be charging rent for those three days. When we got pets, we asked about a pet deposit and he gave us a number. He did not specify that was PER PET until, again, we had already gotten two pets and he sent us the bill. When we needed to leave the area due to a job change and end our lease early, he told us he would work with us. We did the work of advertising, finding new tenants, arranging a time for them to come see the apartment, and gave him over 60 days notice of when we needed to leave. He told us we were doing everything right and did not mention that there would be a “lease transfer fee” until it showed up on our security deposit deduction. All of that to say, when interacting with him, make sure he is very clear and specific about anything regarding money.
-Another issue of “forgetfulness” that felt more like deceit: the apartment we rented was listed as having “laundry in unit.” When we visited, we were led to believe that it came with the washer/dryer—we would not have rented it if we’d known otherwise. The day we moved in, the washer and dryer were gone. When we inquired, he said he “‘never supplies washers or dryers.” So why was it listed as “laundry in unit”?
-Our unit was part of a duplex. He allowed our neighbors to smoke heavily indoors for a year, despite our repeated requests in writing and over the phone for him to ask them to stop. Even when I was pregnant and the secondhand smoke posed a health issue, he did not take any action to rectify the situation. Since we could clearly smell the smoke in our unit, I am willing to bet that the units do not have the separate air systems required for separate dwellings. To further support this possibility, our unit did not even have its own air filter. That was contained in the other and I guarantee it was not changed every month. Legally, was he required to get them to stop smoking? No, although it did violate the “quiet enjoyment of our residence.” However, this situation should tell you what kind of landlord you’re dealing with: he doesn’t seem to mind if his properties get wrecked by smoke or his tenants are suffering. He does the minimal work necessary. When those tenants moved out and the new ones moved in, he had not done any work to clean the place. It still reeked or smoke.
-When we moved out, we took care to carefully clean the entire apartment. I contacted him a week in advance and asked when he wanted to meet to turn over keys and do a walk-through to ensure we’d done everything right. He agreed on a time and date to meet me. When that time came, he didn’t show up. I called and he at first claimed he thought it was the next day. Then he changed his tune again and said, “You can just leave the keys, I never do walk-throughs.” So if you rent from him, know that whatever condition the previous tenants leave the apartment is what you will find. He probably will not even have seen it during the transition. Again, is this illegal? No, but it tells you how much he actually cares about the state of his properties.
-Finally, he failed to send us our security deposit within the legal 30 days. We had to call and remind him once the time was up and only then (about 5 days later) did it come. This was typical of our experiences with Don: if you wanted him to uphold his end of anything, you had to remind and/or contact him several times.
In all fairness, he did usually fix things that needed repairs within several days, mainly if it was something urgent like AC or heat. Non-essentials like a broken light fixture might take weeks or months with multiple reminders.
Although nothing he did during our time was illegal, we constantly felt as though we had to push to get anything done or get straight answers, and his actions showed time and again that he does not care much for his properties or tenants. We would not recommend renting from him.