Mark and Amy Cimmerer are a couple(live in Holt, MI) renting approximately 5 single family homes in the Okemos, MI area. The Good They come across as a reliable midwest couple. Very nice on move-in. Enough so where you may discount that the contract is extreme(no flexibility on move out, only year contracts, extreme liability and access provisions, …) written in ALLCAPITALS(probably a sign of what is to come). They are reasonably responsive if you have problems, though I only contacted them over significant impact issues on their property(roof leak, leaking water pipe, …). They answer emails/texts promptly. The Bad On move out Amy Cimmerer dramatically changed from nice to a pain for us. We have young kids. She persisted to schedule showings(up to 2 months in advance of move out!) at the time our youngest(almost 2) naps at her convenience(refused weekends etc for her schedule) in spite of reasonable/polite requests not to do this. She required us to be out of the house when showing. This and the advance time may not be legal to do. We submitted without complaint since they seemed nice before and I thought we should do favors. Amy did not group showings and was picky on clients and charges way above market rates(insuring a lot of showings). I had to clean up the place 8x(7x showings and two aborted) on her schedule and spent 30+ hours getting the place ready. To top it off, she was rude to my wife/kids in the process. Once there was schedule confusion and she showed up with my wife + party present and made them all leave the house and then left when done saying nothing with them all outside swatting mosquitoes(lot here). Then she did something similar again. This got my wife and I angry. It got worse on the actual move-out. I cleaned up super well(two full days cleaning) and I did many small repairs for them beyond normal scope while living there. For example: I cleaned house gutters 4x(lots of leaves clogged making water drain on sides), put a dehumidifier in and ran full time(damp moldy basement damaging their property) on my expense, fixed doors that did not work, fixed up a mess of a yard(appeared yard sat fallow for a year before our move in), spent large amounts of time cleaning up after their roofers(many hundred nails + brick shards scattered causing safety concern with our young kids). Easily 100+ hours donated beyond normal. Even with all of this she complained about minutia(small spot on carpet by basement, on pro carpet cleaning she demanded, …). There were 4 surface paint scratches near handles from slide-on U-shape kiddie latches on cabinet doors. Legit damage, but something I believe most would just touch up. She replaced all scratched doors and gave me a $ 300 bill for that when I did all these favors for her and had the audacity to say I was lucky she did not bill me to completely replace all cabinets due to a filled 1/16″ mounting hole for a drying rack on the side of one cabinet(put there due to sink/counter not draining right to avoid water damage). When I did not agree and asked for a refund, they took me to small-claims wanting $ 1400 total. That got reduced down to $ 300 by magistrate(my opinion: still a gouge) with no consideration of other issues. I wonder what would have happened if there really *was* significant damage. I left the house in roughly equivalent/better composite condition than we moved in. They even said thanks for the upkeep. But there was no reciprocity after reliably paying higher than market rent for 15 months, the favors, and allowing early/frequent showings with us out. She also took almost a full month to refund the remainder of the security deposit when I did everything on our end immediately allowing her to keep full occupancy. The entitled attitude coupled with what I took as insults on move out is distasteful. It gets worse. I told Amy/Mark I would post a review if she did not refund my deposit given the grievances. I made the mistake of sending that from my work email(we were exchanging emails there). They filed a formal complaint where I work claiming harassment. Apparently, they tried to get me fired(laughable but bonkers) over their gouge damage claim. Be careful with this couple! In preparing for small claims, with little effort I now know of 4(including me) cases of recent wronged tenants(MDs/professors/scientists) with similar/worse/less problems from 2013 – 2015. Cases involve excessive damage claims and similar insulting behavior. Amy’s behavior is also outlandish. Post the dispute hearing, she hurled public insults and oscillated between muttering, glaring, laughing, and crying. An alarming display in my opinion. Now they claim to be suing me via a law firm over this review. In short. You can find better/safer options for house rentals in this area. Our place was over priced for a cheaply refurbished 70s home. There is no need to pay top dollar and then be treated badly with no reciprocity.
