Probably one of the most humiliating rental experiences I've ever had as a renter. I went to Badger Properties because I read good reviews...
Probably one of the most humiliating rental experiences I've ever had as a renter. I went to Badger Properties because I read good reviews on Google and had heard generally good things from people. I went to the office in person and told Chris "the badger" my situation. I was just getting out of a 12 month rehab program, and had been working for a Christian Ministry and looking for an apartment in Auburn since I was a student at Auburn University at the time. I was very up front about my bad credit but was working 7 days a week and had many references etc to back up that I was honest and good for the rent every month. After seeing me alone in his office after hours, and asking me to come along (still alone) with him to see one of the properties (still after hours) I agreed because I was desperately in need of an apartment. He took me to an apartment to collect rent from a girl around my age, then he took me to another apartment where he basically showed me a place and then just sort of "visited" with some tenants. Every one seemed to like him, the apartments were pretty nice for how old they are, regardless, I was impressed at the time. We then went back to his office (once again, all happening after business hours) and he gave me an application, but before he did that he sat me down in the seating area of his office. We were completely alone and it was very dimly lit, and the front door was locked. He asked me extremely probing and personal questions about my past drug use. Mind you, I was sober for over a year at this point, active in church (still am) and admittedly hadn't even smoked a cigarette in over a year. He asked me questions like, "So what led you to do drugs?" "what kind of drugs have you tried?" "how did you do your drugs? did you shoot up? snort them?" He just kept asking SO many invasive and frankly, inappropriate questions; it was almost sadistic. I answered them as honestly as possible without divulging too much, because I really needed an apartment, I was impressed by the ones he had shown me and I thought that being as honest as I could would show him that I was a good tenant despite my bad credit, etc. After filling out an application and getting my credit checked through the program he said he uses to run credit (which gave a very vague summary of ones credit) I went back to his office once I had submitted my credit report and application. He said he didn't think he could rent to me because my credit report showed that I was $25k in debt; I explained that those were my student loans and that the program he uses wasn't showing exactly WHAT the debt was, just the amount. He said he couldn't rent to someone who was that far in debt. I explained that I am a student and that those are my student loans. I said, I would get a more in depth credit report and bring it to him. He gave me back my money order with the application fee on it and said to come back with a new credit report. My aunt is a real estate agent and she ran my credit for me, this time I had a complete credit report with every single student loan showing in detail, but because I had now ran my credit twice in one week, my already poor credit score was even lower. Despite that I went back to "the badger" and told him that the large amount of "debt" he saw was indeed my student loans, which were not even in collection because I was still attending Auburn at the time. He said then said he couldn't rent to someone with a credit score as low as mine and with a history like mine (due to my past drug use I had a criminal record. I have not had a single run in with the law in almost 4 years). So all in all, after wasting time, money, energy and being thoroughly humiliated, I would say that Badger Properties only serves those they deem worthy, and they don't believe in giving people second chances, only sadistically probing and dissecting the past of people who have made mistakes despite turning their lives around. A huge waste of time.