We are a family of three who found Norm King on craigslist. A very bad mistake to rent from him. Tried to do my homework, but unfortunately information was not readily accessible on him on the internet at that time. He not only kept our security deposit, but he also kept our entire rent (thousands) which he promised to return but never did. He kicked us out of the apartment the day after we got there, stated that we were too "high maintenance" and that if we were not out of the apartment by 11 a.m., that he would inactivate our security fobs, denying us access to the Spectrum building where we rented.
Moreover, he stated that we would be rented a two bedroom apartment; we got there and it was only one bedroom. It looked horrible, nothing like the pictures on the internet. He stated parking would be included, but later tried to charge us extra for that. The concierge told us that he doesn't even have a parking space, he's just stealing other people's parking and having the tenant move from space to space, risking being towed. It works like this: When you call to tell him that someone is in your space, he just moves you to another space until that tenant comes home, then he moves you again, and so on. The concierge said that what Norm does is goes around to people asking if he can rent their space while they are away on vacation. He gets paid a great deal of money by the visitors, the lion's share of which he keeps.
He didn't get the opportunity to keep our security deposit. We stopped payment on the check. Luckily, some banks put a 10 day delay on checks from foreign banks and we are from U.S. However, he kept thousands of dollars paid to him in cash when he kicked us out of the apartment with one hour notice. He promised numerous times that he would refund our rent money; he never did.
On the day he kicked us out, we called the police and they were present at the so-called checkout (Norm never showed). As we hurriedly packed our luggage for his 11 a.m. deadline, we talked to the police who knew Norm well. The police said, if all else fails, at least you can let everyone else know how bad Norm is, so people will stop renting from him.
I wish the security deposit was all we had lost.
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