Humboldt Property Management

If you are a student they will not be interested in renting to you. They only take families, and that’s after they get 30 $ out of you (per person) for an application they don’t look at because they already have a family selected.

I don’t quite understand all the negative reviews. I’ve rented from HPM for a few years now and have been 100% satisfied. Either these people have never rented someplace before, or maybe underestimated what it is like to rent in a college town but they do their job well. As far as the front desk positions, they have always been nice to me. I imagine they have to put up with alot especially in the summer months up here with literally hundreds of people calling trying to get a place, or parents trying to get their college kid their first apartment. On the maintenance side of things, they have always responded to anything that went wrong within a reasonable amount of time. I think these Unilocal reviews give people the wrong idea and a bad attitude from the start.

Place was dirty when we moved in and had a lot of damage.
We cleaned the place spotless when we moved out and got full deposit back.
Overall the experience was fine and Alan Gunn seemed like a good guy to us.

When moving to Arcata in June, I started looking for property management companies to work with in the Humboldt area. «Humboldt Property Management» seemed to be the obvious choice, but man was I wrong. This company is full of ineffective, rude employees and rental listings that are even worse.
On the three visits I made to their storefront location, I was met by short tempered and incompetent employees who couldn’t seem to care less about their job. I am a very bubbly person, and usually can bring out the best in people, but even I was getting nowhere with these grumps. All I needed was a bit of information about their application process, and they couldn’t get me out of there fast enough. My honest questions came back with shallow answers, and my business didn’t seem to be worth their time.
Even with these bad in-​person interactions, I thought I should give their listings a shot. I just needed a decent place to live, and I know how to deal with crappy management! So I did decide to go to a few of their showings. (Which, I must say, are done in 15 minute stunts where someone just unlocks the door and stands there while people come and go as they please. When I tried to talk with the agent or ask her questions about the unit, she just looked at me like I was crazy) To my utter amazement, their listings were ten times worse than their service.
Of the three units I saw, two weren’t even livable, especially at their ridiculous prices. There was a fourth unit I considered based on it’s description online, but when I arrived I couldn’t even bring myself to go inside. I think it’s important to say that my last apartment was an 1800’s whore house that had been converted into a very drafty apartment, and my standards are NOT high. These places were just that appalling.
One listing in particular is still mentioned in my house on a regular basis. The outside looked like it’d been hit by a tsunami, and the inside was much worse. The carpets were dank, everything smelled of mold and smoke, and I couldn’t even get naked near the bathroom much less shower in it. This small and appalling two bedroom was asking $ 950/​mo…
I’ve never written a Unilocal review this long, but the horrible company that is Humboldt Property Management deserves it. I ultimately chose not to even try to work with these people, as they are not the type of business I could ever want to give my money to. I feel badly for the renters that do have to deal with them on a regular basis, and worse for the homeowners who have entrusted them to manage their properties– these homes are NOT being taken care of.
It is difficult to find rental listings that aren’t being provided by HPM, but they do exist and are worth the effort. I finally found an amazing two story, one bedroom duplex with a little yard on 5^th street. I’m close to the plaza, the marsh, and even campus. It is clean, quite, well managed, and even allows cats! All for only $ 750 a month. This property is managed by Cottage Reality, which has been such a kind and respectful organization to work with. My landlord Francis is amazing, and everybody should go rent from her and her amazing team.
Ps. Would have given 0 stars but it was not an option.

Like the majority of these reviews point out, I also had a terrible experience with the agents and office staff of Humboldt Property Management in Arcata. I don’t understand how they make a living. Based on my negative interactions with them and others here, I don’t understand how these people even get business. It’s like they despise the very same people who want to rent from them. Definitely won’t be renting through these heathens.

I was looking for a place to stay and called them about a house they had listed. The lady who I talked to was rude and unprofessional, she basically said I was a druggie due to going to college and treated me like I was scum. I, and my roommates agreed not to rent from them. We don’t want to be with someone whose going to treat us like we’re scum. I’d say avoid them if you can, you won’t be treated like a decent human if you are dealing with them.

This place is very unprofessional. Go elsewhere if you have the option. Just terrible

Update: We were able to get rid of the bug problem ourselves, AFTER trying multiple times to get them to take care of it and take responsibility for the living conditions of the unit they knowingly renting out an apartment violating serious amounts of health & safety codes but instead they just continued to ignore us and treat us like scum. We stayed there through the winter and since all the rain storms started passing through our apartment grew so much black mold, with water leaking in though every outside wall. Then the month of December they jacked up our electricity bill to 3 times what it normally was. We found out from the tenant in the main unit was forced to hire her own electrician to finally get someone out there and they told her a lot of the wiring was corroded likely from all the moisture collecting inside the walls; all this amounting to thousands and thousands of her money wasted on electricity no one was using. And the cherry on top is that while we were paying for our electricity usage through Humboldt Rentals she was stuck paying the PG&E bill for both units without Humboldt Rentals never reimbursed her either. There is no way to interact with these people professionally if you want them to actually take care of any issues you might have. Or accept that you’ll have to take care of itself. Dont rent from this company if you have the option. Thankfully after some stressful confrontations they moved us into a nicer unit but this one also has a broken water heater which they knew about and didnt do anything to repair it. SLUMLORDS! Plain and simple!

All I have to say about Humboldt Property Management… IS WOW. Humboldt Property Management definitely win the award for «The worst customer service,» in America. Even Jack in Box and Wendy’s in Eureka… yeah, thats right Eureka, have way better customer service than Humboldt Property Management. Get your act together and start treating future tenants some respect. Without us you guys won’t even have a business to run. But for me, I’m definitely not coming back for your service and for sure warning my friends about you guys.

I rented from Humboldt Property Management for one year. The apartment was not in the best neighborhood, and the condition upon move in was not spectacular. That being said, they never treated me bad as a tenant. They were always very friendly when I contacted them. I never needed repairs, so I don’t have experience with that aspect of their business. WHen I moved out of the apartment, I cleaned it as best I could and elected not to have the carpets cleaned, but to allow them to take it from my security deposit. While waiting for my deposit, I read their reviews on this site. SInce everyone had horrible things to say about them, I started doubting whether they would be fair int he return of my deposit. When I got my check in the mail I was pleasantly surprised that the only deduction taken from my deposit was for the carpet cleaning. Everything else was returned to me.

Scumbags– the nicest name I can call them on here. They take advantage of hard-​working people just to put more money in their fat piggy bank. They do not care once so ever about the person paying them to live in their «property». Don’t expect them to ever fix something or replace something that is super outdated/​not working properly… or if they do its only because it came to the point of it being a fire hazard. They will rob you of your deposit and don’t believe in natural «wear and tear” — even if you moved into a place when they «forgot» to clean it and didn’t check anything from the previous tenant. You’re better off wasting your money at a campground.

Like what everyone else says, don’t rent from them they are rude and unprofessional. I tried going to a showing but got there ten minutes after the set time and they were no longer there. When I called they said they were only their for 5 minutes and was rude when I tried to schedule another time to see the property. I wouldn’t want to imagine renting from them.

They are disrespectful and not worth dealing with. I would write more but that would be more energy wasted on them. Good luck!

I didn’t and won’t find a rental through this office. Their treatment of me from the moment I walked in the door was condescending and rude. I suspect that finding housing in this area is really difficult and there is little pressure on them to have a service oriented attitude. I’m a mom trying to help my daughter find housing and I would definitely steer other parents away from this business – I didn’t even get to the application part. Go to Williamson Property Management and ask for Marie instead.

One star is far f ar too generous. Biggest group of scumbags on the planet. Nothing in the apartment works and then it gets blamed on the occupant. My grandfather a well respected professional with nearly perfect credit said one phone call with Alan was one of the worst ordeals of his life. Avoid like the plague the very thought of these people absolutely sickens me. Most disrespectful, rude group of pricks ever assembled. Slum lords to the extreme. I would much rather live on the streets then give these scumbags one more dollar of my hard-​earned cash. Fuck them.
Read the 17 OTHER NEGATIVE REVIEWS at the bottom to really get an idea of how bad these people and this business truly is.

This is what happens when a group of condescending thugs run a property management business. Scummy through and through. If something breaks it will not get fixed and they’ll charge you for it. Don’t expect your deposit back, regardless of the condition you leave it in.

Pretty much slum lords.
Rented a place from them for 1 month before bailing on it.
They are rude, condescending, cheap and liars to boot. They want you to sign that lease and until you do will be very nice, sweet and helpful. But afterwards they wont keep their word or live up to their end of the lease agreement. I was without a working fridge for 3 weeks!
Don’t deal with them if you have the choice.

These people are so rude. It is so unfortunate that if you want to move to or around the beautiful Arcata area that you have got to deal with these guys. I have never been so at the mercy of a 20 year old snot. Talk about power tripping, eye rolling, condescending, take a number you homeless scum attitude. Not cute.
It was challenging, but eventually I found a place without their help.
I just couldn’t stand the idea of working with these people.
Unilocal has also filtered 11 reviews of this company. All reviews except for one gave 1 star ratings. No Unilocal filter, you don’t understand, yes, they really are that terrible.
Yuck.

Not thrilled with this company. I’m never a fan of a company that is large enough that they get business regardless of their customer service. :/​This companies policies are pretty ridiculous and make it hard for future students to rent from. But after reading their previous rental reviews, I’m timid to use them. However, I’m all about trying to give business’ a chance. I will update this as I deal with them. For the time though they start at 1 star for the seriously rough start.
*update-​their employee Karma (Carmen?) has helped them a bit-​Im a huge hater of stress and finding a place to live is STRESS-​so it was nice she called me back and took the time to give me more helpful info, which is what I wanted to begin with-​moving up a star-​more to follow.

Ick.