When I lived in Durango, CO, I was the property manager and owner of three apartments in Durango. I always made sure that everything in the apartment worked and that it had been cleaned by a local housekeeper before I placed the ad for rental. Michelle Estevan does not do that.
When I moved into the over-priced condo there was still furniture there. I asked her before I rented the condo to get rid of all her furniture in the condo. She said she would; she did not. The Venetian blind in the living room was broken. You could not raise the blind. Two kitchen pantry doors didn’t work. One had a broken hinge and the other one warped. The waste disposal did not work. The place was dirty; it had not been cleaned.
Her handyman, Blake, can verify that. I wish I still had his contact information.
I moved out of the condo she rented in Heber Springs, Arkansas on October 28, 2023. When all my belongings had been moved to a house I had rented, I hired an excellent housekeeper. After I had moved all the boxes to the new house, I went back to the condo to see the woman’s work and pay her.
The condo was cleaned. No cat hairs on the floor and no dirty shelves in the kitchen like it was when I had moved into that condo. I paid the housekeeper, gave the key to the leader of the condo group, and we both left.
On December 22, 2023, I got her letter and was appalled! Michelle had lied!
Here’s what she wrote:
Dear Pam
Please find the enclosed check for $1200.00 as the return of your security deposit after repairs.
Security Deposit…………………………………………………………………………$1650.00
Clean Unit (Condo) ——————————— $200.00
Disposal (due to over filling) 4@35 ————- 140.00
Damaged new refrigerator (due to over filling) —- 75.00
Service call for repair of kitchen cabinet door. ——35.00
Return of Deposit after deductions —————————————–$1200.00
My response In case I Started a Lawsuit:
1) Clean Unit: $200 deducted from my Security Deposit
The condo had not been cleaned before I moved in. She charged me $200 for cleaning it after I moved out. I had hired and paid a well-known local housekeeper to clean it after I moved out. We walked together through every room to make sure everything had been cleaned. It was.
2) Disposal (due to over filling) 4 @$35: $140 deducted from my Security Deposit.
I never did over-fill the waste disposal. I am a vegan who eats the same thing every day. I did not use the waste disposal for breakfast. For lunch, it was half a lemon rind and 1 small apple core. For dinner, it was the peelings of one carrot every two days, ugly bits of Romaine lettuce, and maybe peelings of two small golden kiwis if Walmart had them, but those were done after the peelings and bits of lettuce. I used waste disposals in every house I bought or rented and never had an issue with them.
The handyman thought he fixed the waste disposal but it still wasn’t working so I asked him to come by again and check it out. He said it was broken and he would put in a new one. Michelle did NOT pay for 4 new waste disposals. She only paid for one. And that’s what a property owner does. They do not expect their renter to pay for fixing things.
3) Service call for repair of kitchen cabinet door: $35 deducted from my Security Deposit.
The door was broken when I moved in. The handyman could not find the right kind of hinge in any hardware store from Heber Springs to Little Rock.
4) “Damaged new refrigerator door shelf”: I don’t mind paying for the plastic shelf that fell off the refrigerator door ($75) even though it had a broken part that holds the shelf there. I told her about it and she never replied.
I believed Michelle, the owner of that condo, should refund me $375!
I asked Ron, the man who built the house I bought on Lakeshore Drive, if he knew anyone who did a lawsuit similar to the one I wanted to do. He said he had a new appliance that didn’t work and he went through that process to get his money back. He told me to go to a courthouse to get the papers and then go to the sheriffs’ building. I did. But the paperwork was in legalese that I could not understand.
A little while later, I was in one of the many consignment stores here and asked the man who owned it if he knew anyone who had done a citizen lawsuit. He said he didn’t but that his wife, Holly, knew a lot about legalese. So I made an appointment at her convenience and she helped me fill out the papers and labeled other papers like Michelle’s letter as “Exhibit A”.
When it got to the final thing on paperwork, writing Michelle’s address, she said “I don’t think you should do this. Here’s why: she lives in Little Rock and you would have to do this settlement there. The cost of doing these kinds of lawsuits is higher than the amount of money you hope to get back from her. She mentioned my costs if I tried to do a lawsuit:
$14.72 Paid to Post Office
$50.00 Paid to Sheriffs office
$75.00 Process server
$65.00 Filing fee
$204.72 Total, not including cost of gasoline or lawyer
Holly said I wouldn’t get enough money to make it worthwhile after all those expenses had been paid. I told her that I was sorry I wasted her time. When I got home, I called Ron and he agreed that I should just let it go.
Writing this blog post has helped me to “let it go.” I also wanted to share my experience so that if you or a family member or friends plan to move to Arkansas, I wanted you to know what kind of person she is. DO NOT BUY or RENT anything from this woman or her business.
Michelle Esentan and her brother own this company of houses and rentals. The address for their company is: AR MMM LLC, 17 Creekwood Cove, N Little Rock, AR 72116. Michelle’s email is mmichelle777@yahoo.com.
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Til next time,
Please be kind to everyone you meet, for we all have our hidden sorrows. ~Tzaddi
skatingthru2012 