KAMIN REALTY CO

Description of Work: We have lived in a basement apartment with Kamin Realty for almost 2 full years now. Worst experience in the last 10 years of my renting history. They rented out a basement apartment that they charge almost $1,000 /month for. There are two apartments on the basement level and the one right next to us is not rented out because of how prone to flooding it is. Ours is too and several times we've been flooded including the worst and last one in August that flooded shadyside/east end. The landlord Robert Kamin who owns the property is the most unprofessional person I've ever dealt with. In fact i haven't directly dealt with him because you can't reach him. He will not talk to his tenants and he is extremely greedy and non responsive. He told his maintenance man that he wouldn't talk to tenants and made his maintenance contractor communicate everything to us. We had a tv stand, carpeting, towels, an end table, bath mats, curtain liner and shower curtain ruined because of the flood. It was unlivable and we were forced to stay in a hotel room the first night that cost $162.00 that we had to fork out in addition to replacing our damaged items totaling well over $200.00. Paul the maintenance guy said that Robert didn't say a thing about reimbursements, covering costs, etc. and the office manager was on vacation and we didn't hear from her. Had to call the office a couple times until I got her on the phone. She said that there was nothing she could do (even though the flood happens because of the structural problems which the maintenance guy will vouch for) and all we could do was send in the invoices for the damages and the hotel room and she could present it to him. He also informed the maintenance guy that there wasn't another apt he could put us in that first night, so clearly he knew it wasn't livable. So I took the proactive approach and sent a rent check (without ever hearing follow up from them) less the expenses we incurred. A couple weeks went buy and we get a "late notice" in the mail stating we owe an odd amount. I had to yet again call the office to find out why and the office manager stated that he wasn't covering anything except he did lessen the rent by $30 since that's what it costs per day. Unbelievable. To top it off we've complained of insects (we find at least 1 spider per day in all areas of the apt including moths, ants, beetles, even one time a small lizard), air conditioning units (it's always too hot or too cold), plowing the driveway in bad snow storms which caused other issues of me being late to work, at least 3 times the garage door being broken leaving our cars and bikes exposed. I called a real estate attorney when dealing with all of this to determine what my options were and he know of Bob Kamin and indicated that he's not easy to deal with or get a hold of.