Taft Apartments

ANOTHER WARNING and Confirmation that Joan Dean is cruel. I am a normal, mature renter but this woman broke my spirit.
She will email you threats, make up stories that are lies, peek in your windows and show up without warning to creep around the yard. Your deposit is gone, for sure, so don’t hire a professional cleaning crew.
Joan Dean owns 4 units at 6^th and Prospect that are absolutely gorgeous. Do not think you can trade off an unstable landlord for beautiful views. It is a nightmare.

My partner and I rented an apartment in this building from Joan Dean with Dean Properties for one year. The building was very pretty from the outside and the location is good, which are factors that initially attracted us. It would be a good apartment with different management, but there were several things that Joan did that make me unable to recommend this place to anyone.
First, here’s an example of how Joan was unresponsive to requests for maintenance. We couldn’t get hot water in our apartment consistently the whole time we lived there (it was never really hot, and it was fairly random when we could get it warm). Once, when the water was cold for over 48 hours straight in the middle of winter, I called Joan to make sure she knew about the problem and ask her to fix it. She DENIED that there was a problem and hung up on me. She literally told me that I was crazy and the hot water in my apartment never had a problem. She had never inspected it and had no factual basis to say that. She is an absentee (out of state) landlord most of the time, and only occasionally at the Taft. She told me she was in Palm Springs at the time of this event. The apt was shown to us initially by a guy she had working for her named Jimmy (who WAS responsive to any questions or maintenance requests we had, but was apparently let go when we had been there about 5 months without announcement or replacement).
Second, we had a signed paper contract that we negotiated with Joan through Jimmy at the start of our tenancy where we would get a certain amount of money a month to preform a defined set of cleaning tasks around the building. Everything was great but then, after Jimmy was let go, Joan just stopped paying us. We eventually just stopped cleaning the building and decided to put it behind us, but it shows how little respect she has for contracts.
Another written contract that she violated was the renters agreement. When we moved out, we got the place immaculately clean. I made the maximum effort to ensure everything was better than I found it, including scrubbing floors, trim, walls, fixtures, windows, filling the holes from picture hangings, having the carpets professionally cleaned, literally everything. Still, Joan is attempting to retain a significant portion of our security deposit anyway. The renters contract, like most, stipulates that everything must be returned to the landlord in as good condition minus normal wear and tear as it was received. Joan’s list of charges she is assessing against us includes things covered by «normal wear and tear» like touch-​up painting. She is also charging us for repairs to ceiling fans that never worked, a replacement broiler pan we never had, etc.
In our apartment there was a little window set high up in the wall that looked into Joan’s locked administrative office. Occasionally, the office light was left on at night and it really bothered us because it poured light over our bed making it really hard to sleep. The first time it happened, I called Joan and politely asked her to make sure that it was turned off at night in the future, and she DENIED that the light was on. I was literally looking at it and it was on, and she was telling me that it was off, and it was not possible that it was on. Again, like the hot water issue, we just had to throw up our hands and deal with it. The office light came back in an amusing way later. When we were packing to move out, Joan complained that she couldn’t show the apartment because our stuff was everywhere. We told her that that’s what packing for a move looks like and we’d be out in plenty of time, and she’d basically have to deal with it. That night, and for several after, Joan left her office light on in an insanely petty and immature retaliation.
Overall, the building could be good with different management, but think twice about dealing with Joan Dean and Dean Properties!
Also, check out the review that has been filtered by Unilocal.It sounds wild, but I’d believe it based on my experience.

WARNING: Joan, the owner/​manager of this place might charm you a bit, seem to have something special to offer, but she is cruel and off her rocker. I put a $ 400 deposit down on a specific apartment and signed the lease agreement not reading her fine print which permits her to change which apartment she is renting to you at her whim. Who’s heard of such a lease? She decided I should have a basement apartment that didn’t yet have a bathroom, and when I protested and said I wanted the apartment I’d agreed to — nothing extraordinary by the way (but it had a bathroom with a bathtub) — she pointed with the bony finger of Ebeneezer Scrooge to the fine print. She did not respond to my calls thereafter asking to have a conversation about the fairness of the agreement. Even the Tenants’ Union, my heroes, said they would not be able to help since I’d already signed this weird lease. Read your lease and think twice. I lost $ 400 I didn’t have to lose. Seriously, don’t be beguiled. She’s nuts.