My enitre experience as a renter in San Luis Obispo with Cal-West has been way below par. First of all when I went to sign the lease I had to wait in the office for twenty minutes while both of the secretaries were on the phone/ answering phone calls in front of me without even aknowledging my presence. Then it took them another ten minutes to find my lease in a huge unorganized stack of files all the while acting annoyed, and did not even know what property I was talking about. Unless there is an emergency, like water flooding all over the floor, Cal-West is not too concerned about fixing property damage. Except when they decide to fix things and show up with no advanced warning, working outside with loud machinery at early hours of the weekend, blocking all tenant access to the driveway and surrounding street around the house. Besides having nothing in the lease about what the terms and conditions are for renewing the lease, Cal-West just expects tenants to know that if they do not receive notification in the mail about renewing the lease their lease will not be renewed, even after years of the lease being renewed and no justifiable reason for terminating the lease. When asked how tenants are suppossed to know about this policy they say ""It's our policy and you should just know"" even though it is not on the lease or on their website anywhere. Also, when new roommates move into the house Cal-West is too lazy to come to the property and inspect it themselves so they rely on the current and new tenants to assess the damages and dole out security deposits on their own. This leads to properties not being inspected or maintained by Cal-West for several years. I have rented from a few other real-estate companies in San Luis Obispo and Cal-West is by far the WORST. I would not reccommend them to other renters, nor home owners looking for a company to take care of their property. In the future I will never rent from Cal-West again.
more