WA Krauss & Co Property Management

To prevent myself from ranting off a novel, I will sum up this business in 10 bullet points for those of you with the misfortune of having to rent from these criminals:
1. They will attempt to rush you through the initial walk-​through of the apartment. Don’t let them. Make sure to log every single mark/​scuff you see on the legal sheet.
2. They will not give you a receipt for paid rent. We asked, they said «No.» The best they could do was sign the envelope. Right… Cause that means diddly.
3. They will do whatever they can not to be present, available, or helpful when you need them. Don’t expect any repairs to be done in a timely manner, either.
4. They cater to the property owners, not to the renters. Do not think otherwise.
5. They will use your deposit to renovate after you leave, and have no problem supplying you with false information regarding their rights. You have rights too. Make sure they aren’t stomping on yours, because they probably are.
6. They claimed that the apartment we rented for 14 months was newly painted before we moved in, they charged us $ 400+/half the renovation cost (They repainted Every. Single. Room. Even inside the closets.) This leads us back to #1. Fortunately, we had logged marks on the walls of the living room and bedroom thus rendering their claims that it was «newly painted» as false.
7. They will attempt to take from you as much of your deposit as possible. i.e. $ 40 charge for «light maintenance” – they accused us of leaving a light on. We did not. $ 60 for «cleaning and small repairs” – they claimed we had removed a screw from the kitchen faucet. We did not.
8. They will take the maximum number of days to return your scalped deposit to you.
9. They will lie, deceive, and attempt to play you out of your hard-​earned cash. Do your research, cover your asses.
10. Take pictures of everything. If we hadn’t (thank god for the pics of the closets and behind the fridge), we would have had no evidence to throw at them when they returned us $ 300 of our $ 1,000 deposit.

I am so frustrated with this company! We were held to the contract terms 100% and we respected that and paid what we needed to pay without giving them any issues as that was what we had to do. Well here we are a month later and barely received our deposit refund. They did not send it in the 21 days they have to send it and came up with complete lies as to why they didn’t. They also said we didn’t have proof of this! We sure do, it’s called a post mark date and I have the entire email thread saved of every single conversation I had with them regarding this. So we called them on it and are demanding our entire deposit back now as legally they have to refund the entire deposit if they don’t have your initial refund to you within that 21 day period. They have failed and now they are trying to use intimidation tactics to scare us. We are godly people who truly didn’t want this to happen but they are not being honest and they are ripping people off. Next step is contacting the owner and small claims court…

I’ve been renting with this property management company for over 9 years. I have never had any issues. They fix whatever needs fixing, they are very punctual and seem to be very personable. My kids and I love our home and appreciate the staff.
They keep the property in decent shape and the prices. I would absolutely recommend renting with them. It seems like a family business. Not sure it is.

The positive: office staff is pleasant when they answer their phones.
The negative: i would be very weary of renting from this property mgmt company. They take owners money to manage their properties, but in my opinion, the owners do NOT get any value out of them. They are basically a middle man to pay the rent and not much else.
The house we rented was dirty when we checked in (floors, exterior, windows, all of it). When trying to get things fixed, they are not proactive and when something is scheduled, they will rarely communicate when the appt is until the painter/​plumber/​whoever is outside your door wanting to get in.
They will nickel and dime at check out.
Do not rent from this company.

Our experience renting from WA Krauss was consistently unpleasant and frustrating. The property we rented had poor ventilation and, in the rainy season, quickly developed a serious mold problem. The mold was growing on the windows and windowsills, the back of our dressers and under the drawers, on clothing and other items stored under the bed and on the bed slats of our brand new bed. Much of our furniture was destroyed. WA Krauss’s reaction was to blame the problem on «tenant air» and to refuse to do anything about it. They suggested we leave our windows open all day while we were not at home in a ground floor unit during the winter months. The only way we finally resolved this issue was to get the property owner involved. Without his intervention, WA Krauss would not have compensated us for our losses or taken steps to fix the situation. Still, in the end, the way the unit was «fixed» was only a temporary fix, and the mold will return with the winter months, so we decided to move out.
Not only was WA Krauss reluctant to address our mold issue, every maintenance issue we had was met with similar reluctance. Our calls were not returned in a timely manner and issues took months to be repaired.
WA Krauss staff was also consistently unprofessional and rude on the phone and in person. They failed to show up for a meeting they had scheduled, and then refused to return our payment for the meeting (the optional final walkthrough before move-​out). Also, during normal business hours when we stopped by, the office was closed. They are unreliable and sometimes downright rude to the point where we would dread having to deal with them because the smallest thing would always turn into a fiasco. Somehow, they were still surprised that we wanted to move out.
For your own sanity, please don’t rent from this company unless you or someone you know very well is a lawyer, because you will need legal assistance if anything in your rental unit goes wrong. If you must rent from them, carefully document every issue and interaction in writing and take photos and video of your unit before you move in, for your own protection. One thing that worked for us was to threaten to take them to Mountain View’s tenant mediation services (a free service the city of Mountain View provides).

W.A. Krauss & Co. is an exceptional property management company, from my experience as a renter. The staff is very friendly, knowledgable, helpful and personable. Some of their staff have been realtors, so they know their stuff. They even pointed out to me that my apartment complex had broken some laws regarding rent control, as many apartment complexes do.
Rent was very fair. There was no special promotion to get people in the door — just the honest price. So, it appeared a bit more expensive than an apartment at first glance, but after my lease expired my rent didn’t change at all with W.A. Krauss & Co. As they represent individual property owners, they prefer long-​term tenants, and their policies reflect that. And indeed, most of their tenants are long term, to the best of my knowledge.
Maintenance issues were dealt with promptly. They don’t have maintenance people on staff, as most apartments do, so it takes a little longer. But issues were dealt with promptly, and they did a good job of prioritizing issues after a massive storm created problems in several of their properties.
The property I was in was quite a bit older, and could definitely have used a face-​lift. But it was clean and comfortable, and a very good value, all things considered. I was very happy to have found the place. This was also one of their cheaper properties, as I recall, and some of their others looked quite nice.
After I moved out, I got almost my full deposit back. I take very good care of my surroundings, and have been ripped off by apartment complexes many times without justification. W.A.Krauss & Co. clearly showed all of the deductions from my deposit — in my case, only a very reasonable cost to have the carpets cleaned — and refunded all of the rest. The only thing is that they mailed it to my old address even though I gave them my new address, but mail forwarding caught that.
I moved out just after my lease expired for personal reasons, as I was leaving the area entirely. If I were to move back to the Bay Area, I would gladly rent from them again, and I wholeheartedly recommend them to all of my friends in the area.

I think WA Krauss is great. From the property OWNERS perspective, they treat my property as if it were their own, and they try very hard to make the tenants happy. Of course, it’s never possible to make everyone happy, and sometimes the tenants do have to be billed for some repairs. (When you find 3 plastic toys stuck in a toilet drain pipe, it’s pretty easy to see this is not something the owner should pay for, for one real-​world example.)
Another example is when one family, just arrived from Europe, did not know how to operate the set-​back thermostat on the furnace. They sent a man out to train them, no charge. No property owner wants to have the property unoccupied, especially if tenants are leaving «unhappy», and just renting from someone else. I have had 3 tenants in nearly 5 years of renting my home, with only 9 days total that the home was not rented. The first 2 tenants left due to transfers.
SO, my 2-​cents. If you have questions, you can email me at
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What kind of bullcrap is this?
Set up an appt. to look at this place for someone else. At first the phone just rang and rang, and then the voicemail said to leave a message. I did not. I called again, and this time a live person answered, saying that the unit is still available but didn’t offer up any information about it or try to sell it in any way. Stupid!
He said they didn’t have any more availability for showings that day (it was already late afternoon), but the next day (with a different manager). I made an appt. and he took my name and phone number.
So we showed up there this morning and couldn’t find the place! It was an endless maze of identical townhouses, most of which were not clearly numbered/​lettered, making it more hassle to find than it was worth. No signs pointing to the vacant unit (maybe an HOA doesn’t allow that, but it’s stupid — how about the guy on the phone offering some directions if it’s a difficult-​to-​find place?), or any clear idea what street to drive in on. The main street and cross street didn’t tell us anything.
By the time it was 15 minutes after the appointment time, the person we supposedly had the appointment with never even called to check on us showing up or to help with directions, and we didn’t bother calling her ’cause we were so frustrated. Other than having a nice walk in the wind (we live a few blocks away), they wasted our time. Stupid people!
On their website, this management co. advertises to farm themselves out to landlords for services. As a landlord, I would definitely not hire these idiots. God forbid someone would actually rent from them — jeezus.

Please — Either… fix your phones or have an email address listed somwhere so we can get a hold of you.

Two and a half months after taking back the keys, they finally sent the security deposit refund to their former tenant. Said a refund was issued earlier, but instead of mailing it to the address provided, they sent it to the old (vacated) address.

they finally fixed my stairs!
perhaps they read this review?
WA krauss still only earns 2 stars, but their carpenter was so polite and nice. he did an excellent job.

The office staff is really pleasant in person. However, they rarely answer the phones and even more rarely return voicemail.