Reviews

Review Details

• Review fromAnna L

  Date: 01/15/2025

  1 star

  Anna L

  Date: 01/15/2025

  Horrible property management company - moved to the area as a couple of professionals new to the state. I left a review on ****** with pictures and they decided to remove their whole ****** business page. I moved into a duplex of theirs that had roaches that we saw on the night of day one. They claim they didnt know but already had pest control scheduled for the day after we moved in (before we complained) for a preventative treatment. FILTHY apartment that they had flipped before - slapped up some paint and threw down new carpet. **************** were gross and the inside of the dishwasher was literally orange. They sent cleaning people in unannounced while we werent home when we complained. Learned from neighbors that the property was slummy and they had piled trash in front of the place for quite some time. We had said dirty (and broken) dishwasher left in the yard for months. Theres so much to be said about the experience I had with them. Simply put; I would never recommend anyone to rent a property managed by stepping stone group.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 01/16/2025

  **** - These concerns at move-in were urgently resolved and communicated with you and your husband, yet the hostility towards us immediately surfaced upon receiving your security deposit with the Zerorez invoice charged against it, as we had get the dog smell out of the new carpet after our own RugDoctor didn't resolve it.

  To recap about your Move In, for the sake of BBB:

  We did not know there was any ***** activity until we entered the unit to flip it 24 hours prior to your move in.  The previous tenants moved out at noon on the last day of the month, and never reported seeing one.  You moved in the following day at noon.  We did have preventative service set up at this property because the other side of the unit had some ***** activity from a previous tenant, and when we saw one in your unit while flipping the unit, we called ****** Pest Control to book a treatment asap. During this 24 hour period, we saw one *****.  You saw one ***** the next day when you moved in.  ****** Pest Control treated the following day and there was not another issue in the entirety of your lease.

  We had new paint and carpet professionally installed throughout the 3BR/2BA unit before your move in.  As a reminder, this amount of work was completed in its 24 hours of vacancy time, as we pride ourselves on not pushing out Move Ins for tenants no matter how late that means the work day/night lasts.  With this time crunch, the cleaners were rushed to complete their work, as they could not start until the paint and carpet were completed, so when you reported that certain things were not cleaned as well as they should have been, we responded and got the company to return immediately to rectify the misses.  This company always does a spectacular job for us, and we provided context to you about all of this.

  Unfortunately, no matter how quickly we responded to your needs or worked around your needs (ie: your dog's anxiety of strangers), you were never satisfied. I understand this rental unit was a holding place while your own home was being renovated or built, but this was not a relationship that you wanted to deal with.  It was a losing battle to win you over, even though we continued to try and show how much we cared. I'm sorry we couldn't turn things into a better experience in the end.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 01/16/2025

  **** - These concerns at move-in were urgently resolved and communicated with you and your husband, yet the hostility towards us immediately surfaced upon receiving your security deposit with the Zerorez invoice charged against it, as we had get the dog smell out of the new carpet after our own RugDoctor didn't resolve it.

  To recap about your Move In, for the sake of BBB:

  We did not know there was any ***** activity until we entered the unit to flip it 24 hours prior to your move in.  The previous tenants moved out at noon on the last day of the month, and never reported seeing one.  You moved in the following day at noon.  We did have preventative service set up at this property because the other side of the unit had some ***** activity from a previous tenant, and when we saw one in your unit while flipping the unit, we called ****** Pest Control to book a treatment asap. During this 24 hour period, we saw one *****.  You saw one ***** the next day when you moved in.  ****** Pest Control treated the following day and there was not another issue in the entirety of your lease.

  We had new paint and carpet professionally installed throughout the 3BR/2BA unit before your move in.  As a reminder, this amount of work was completed in its 24 hours of vacancy time, as we pride ourselves on not pushing out Move Ins for tenants no matter how late that means the work day/night lasts.  With this time crunch, the cleaners were rushed to complete their work, as they could not start until the paint and carpet were completed, so when you reported that certain things were not cleaned as well as they should have been, we responded and got the company to return immediately to rectify the misses.  This company always does a spectacular job for us, and we provided context to you about all of this.

  Unfortunately, no matter how quickly we responded to your needs or worked around your needs (ie: your dog's anxiety of strangers), you were never satisfied. I understand this rental unit was a holding place while your own home was being renovated or built, but this was not a relationship that you wanted to deal with.  It was a losing battle to win you over, even though we continued to try and show how much we cared. I'm sorry we couldn't turn things into a better experience in the end.

  Anna L

  Date: 01/19/2025

  The rental was not a holding place - we were hoping to remain somewhere for 2+ years before buying a home. This rental experience was so negative, we chose to rush the choice to purchase a home just to get out of there. This was not something we wanted to rush, obviously. Although you did attempt to push your own real estate services to give a move out early deal which we decided against, naturally.The only positive thing I have to say for Stepping Stone is the repairs/maintenance crews were great. Speedy and nice ******* far as working around my dogs anxiety, you proceeded with showing the apartment without us home despite my objections, so I dont see how you worked around this. Also documented via email that you refused to work around it. I also disagree that I was hostile with anyone over the carpet cleaning, although I wholly disagree with the charge. I had large rugs down, no pet stains to be seen, and this was a pet friendly advertised apartment. Smells do come with pets, although I doubt the validity of you charging these extra charges, especially when you charge pet deposits/fees. Any hostilities experienced in this relationship were from your employees over the ***** issue to begin with - primarily ***** who at one point told us WE would have to pay if we asked to have them come out again. This was after the initially preventative maintenance and one additional visit to spray more because we were continually seeing ***** activity. All of these are documented with photos, texts, voice mails, and video. We also had nonstop poor experiences with neighbors who wrecked the place and had dogs in there barking for hours on end without permission to even have. This relationship was not salvageable, that is correct. From what I gathered from other reviews, this was not a one time experience. I stand by my negative review. If I had more free time, I would have pursued further legal action for these extra charges.

• Review fromAlex S

  Date: 10/25/2024

  1 star

  Alex S

  Date: 10/25/2024

  Ive never had such a horrible experience renting. They are leaches, take your deposits over nothing (like blinds and screens that werent damaged) and they are actively contributing to the housing crisis in mpls.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 01/16/2025

  Hi **** - ******* tried to reach you via phone and email back in October and November, but has not received a response back.  She would be happy to chat with you about what she was able to find out about your deposit charges!  Some of the damages were not there upon your move-in, but there were others that got assessed to your deposit by mistake due to a new employee not coding it "non-tenant billable" when they bought and swapped out a few due to aging.  Please give her a call and she can get this taken care of with you! :)

• Review fromChloe P

  Date: 08/29/2024

  1 star

  Chloe P

  Date: 08/29/2024

  We found out after moving in that property listings falsely listed square footage, inflating the size of the apartment. Management failed to disclose property specific rules and fees that were not listed in the lease or sent out via any form of official communication. Maintenance illegally entered our unit without notice and staff ignored my complaint for months until another issue arose and I reminded them. We regularly received mass texts and emails saying maintenance would need access to all units and then nobody would ever show up. Calls to the offices main and emergency lines were never answered and voice mails were entirely ignored. Office staff is incompetent at best and malicious at worst. They spend more time fighting with their negative ****** reviews than actually working. Lastly, we did not have our deposit returned within the legal time limit in the state of **. Moving out of this property was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I am so happy that I never have to deal with this business again!

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 08/30/2024

  *****,

  Your lease ended on July 31st, 2024 and your security deposit disposition letter and funds were mailed or electronically sent (depending on which you signed up for) on Aug 21st, 2024 as per the legal time limit.  You chose to move out earlier than that, but it does not affect the financial terms of your lease so that might be where you are confused about the timeline.

  Regarding property rules and fees, everything is outlined on the front page of your lease as I have copied in below:

  Term of Lease. 12 months :
  Starting Date of Possession: 08/01/2023
  Ending Date of Possession (if known): 07/31/2024
  Monthly Rent: $999.00
  Late Fee (See Paragraph 3): 8 Percent of All Charges Security Deposit: $999.00
  Pet Fee(s):
  *******, cat
  See pet fees in Section 2.
  Garage Stall: See Garage Addendum if Applicable
  First Month's Proration: $999.00
  Utilities included in the rent: None and Tenant pays additional $100/mo for water/trash/gas/sewer/parking/amenities

  During the year of your tenancy, looking over your payment ledger, there were no other fees that were charged to your account, so I'm not sure what you are talking about when you say there were undisclosed fees and rules.

  Also, upon move-out, the only charges against your security deposit were the cleaning fee (which we split 50% of the cost of as promised with our move-out incentive), $44 for the vertical blinds broken and $60 for a slow bath tub drain that needed to be snaked.  

  Regarding any mass texts or emails sent regarding maintenance, this would only center around an emergency in another unit with a water leak or a "no heat" issue that we had received.  Because this building is three floors and also operates on one boiler system, we would send mass proactive notice because it would be unknown which units were part of the problem yet.  If there was ever a time that someone entered before notice was sent out, it was because someone was responding to an emergency and a mass notice hadn't been sent yet due to the urgent timing to stop whatever leak was happening in floors below.  I'm sorry if this was not understood by you, but we do not enter anyone's home without notice unless it is due to an emergency.  I personally do the schedule for all technicians, which originates from work orders in Property Meld that I schedule with you, the tenant, and then put into the calendar for the techs.  Meaning, a technician wouldn't know about a work order unless I scheduled and told them about it...I think you are still confusing an emergency repair in the building for a regular maintenance request made.

  Regarding voicemails, the office team is often out in the field, so while they may not be able to answer your initial incoming phone call, they will respond when they get it, which is typically in 1-3 business days depending on the workload that week.  If you had different expectations for response times, that could have definitely caused frustration; however that is why we have the emergency line if something more urgent is needed.  I also personally carry the emergency line (which is an iPhone) which I will respond to via text every time, even if there is a missed call without a voicemail, to make sure it was just a misdial. 

  I'm sorry that you had a bad experience, and I would be happy to get on a call with you if you there is a specific situation that fell outside of what I described above, but I hope that helps brings understanding to what you brought up as perceived incompetence or malice.  

  Regards,

  Heather

• Review fromMorgan B

  Date: 08/07/2024

  1 star

  Morgan B

  Date: 08/07/2024

  I rented through them for 11 months. They were terrible at communication and when I had some financial trouble, they were nothing but insconsiderate and refused to even communicate that they wouldnt work with me. I never fell behind and paid all of their late fees. They threatened me when it took me a 5 days to move out and I moved out early. They didnt repair all things I put in repairs for. They made up violations to not resign me. They parked outside my place while I moved out to like intimidate me.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 08/30/2024

  ******,

  You moved in Sept 1, 2023.  Since March 2024, every single month you were late on rent and struggled to catch up before the next rent cycle hit.  I would not call this inconsiderate, as we continued to try and work with you on payment plans vs. filing an eviction.  When the past due rent balance got worse in July 2024, instead of filing an eviction the would affect your record, we came to an agreement that you would move out by July 31st, 2024.  You did not adhere to that agreement, so we were continually following up on when we could expect keys...again, weighing the validity of your word or if we would need to file an eviction instead since we had trusted you would move out on July 31st, but did not do so.  There was no other reason for not-renewing your lease, let alone agreeing to end your lease a month early without the financial obligation to pay us for August since your lease move out date was August 31st, not July 31st.

  Regarding someone sitting outside your place while you moved is comical, I pay my employees to do more productive things than that.  There are 5 units in your building, so if they were on-site during these days, it was for maintenance repairs in other units that your neighbors had requested.  And if they were sitting in their car for a period of time, they are allowed to take 15 min breaks or take their lunch in the field.

  As a reminder, please make sure that you send in the balance for unpaid rent to us as well.  We file in conciliation court after 60 days.

• Review fromBlank B

  Date: 06/03/2024

  1 star

  Blank B

  Date: 06/03/2024

  ***** our property manager has neglected the entire building, there was blood splatter on the front door for over a month, the lawn is never mowed the building is always filthy. But we let that slide until recently when we started experiencing issues with the tenants below us. They would have parties until 4 am. smoke weed endlessly. We were told to send them videos of the noise complaint and when we did he told us "they just got engaged" so it was ok behavior. I reached out to the business manager because we were fed up. she ended up fining them which led to them having a brutal retaliation period of kicking the glass front door at us, parking 2 inches away from our cars and even taking pictures/videos of us from their unit when we were outside. The stepping stone group has turned a minimal situation into an and extremely hostile and scary situation. We were so stressed and uncomfortable that we decided to move out immediately with 3 months left of our lease. Of course the stepping stone group is refusing to let us out of our lease early because they don't see the situation through the eyes of tenants just their wallets.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 08/30/2024

  Kayla - I am copying over this response from June 14th, as this is a duplicate of the dispute you submitted back then on BBB, and they have two different portals:

  Kayla - We have been responsive to your reports about this other unit, as soon as same-day or up to 48 hours later, as well as immediately communicating with (and fining upon 2nd documented occurrence) the other unit about the behavior after each occurrence.  As you know, that unit has also filed reports of noise complaints against you, which we would also quickly communicate to you as well.  As the multiple reports continued to come in from both parties, we continued to urge you both to do two things:  1. Call the police to report the noise violation. 2. Communicate with each other directly about the concerns and resolve this dispute and tension.

  I even went as far as to call all of the other neighbors in the building to ask if they have any concerns about noise from any unit in the building at late hours of the night.  Typically, when there is a noisy neighbor, most of the building (or the ones close enough in proximity) all call-out the same unit as the source.  In this case, no one had any concerns or issues with noise and sleeping.  As a Landlord in a dispute like this, unless you ***** personally testify in court with documentation in your neighbor's eviction case, nothing else can be done. We did everything in our legal power to enforce or give direction on what to do - to both parties.  We even offered to move you and your partner to another building, one block away in an exact replica of the size and finishes of where you were currently staying, if you didn't feel that things would change with this neighbor.  That would have allowed no rent overlap and a fresh start in a new building.   

• Review fromdarthplagueis

  Date: 05/21/2024

  1 star

  darthplagueis

  Date: 05/21/2024

  My advice to anyone looking to rent is to do everything in your power to avoid renting from this company. They are rude, disorganized, and disrespectful. They've neglected our building to the point of disrepair, and every single one of my neighbors (we talk quite often) has at least one complaint about them. I'm not going to add any identifying details because I can see they're replying to everyone's reviews directly addressing the person writing the review, and I don't want to be retaliated against for warning fellow renters. I trust that most renters will know I have no reason to lie, and they shouldn't trust a defensive company replying to reviews over another renter. It is quite funny that they have time to respond to these random reviews, but take 3 days to respond to any time-sensitive emails or texts that I send them. Take it from someone who has been renting for a long time, has never felt the need to leave a review before, and has never had a problem with any property management company in the past: I have never had a worse experience in my entire life. You will regret renting from these people.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 08/30/2024

  "*******************"

  I actually take a lot of time researching the facts behind complaints that are posted, so since you are not willing to identify yourself, there is not much I can to help you.  However, I encourage you to better use the word "retaliatory" as that centers around revenge vs. explaining another side to the story, let alone facts surrounding a story.  Our society has misused that word for years now, and you are incorrect in your usage.  I will continue to state the facts surrounding what happens with a tenant, if they choose to post an incorrect story online.  If I find we have made a mistake instead, I will sincerely apologize for that as well.  Unfortunately, this platform is used by people who are upset because they were not following lease requirements for paying rent, smoking, noise violations, etc and were held accountable to those expectations.  The other scenario is when tenants choose to not communicate with us when concerns come up and therefore become resentful when we don't know there is a problem in the first place.  I cannot do anything to change that, but luckily most of our 1600 tenants do choose to communicate with us on anything and everything. which results in a great relationship and years of working together.  

  If you are truly interested in expressing concerns you have, I am happy to get on a phone call directly to listen and take notes.

• Review fromDee P

  Date: 05/10/2024

  1 star

  Dee P

  Date: 05/10/2024

  Do not rent from this company. They're very difficult to work with, actually impossible, you will have to take them to court. Take a look at the cases they have filed against them. They're heartless, non-caring thieves. Trying to s**** people over to benefit themselves.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 05/15/2024

  Hi Delight - To name call and make the statements above like you did, after both ***** and I have been responsive and extensive in our explanations is an incorrect representation of our organization. I understand that you disagree, but we have never had a disagreement or negative interaction in two years until last week.  How are we benefitting from this situation? How are we thieves?  You are making blanket statements in anger and that is not the purpose for reviews.  Take some responsibility for your lack of communication when we asked for it.

  For the review's platform, here is my email to Delight from Thursday, May 9th:

  I am aware of the unfortunate issue that happened and I will reiterate that Im really sorry that these circumstances occurred.  I know that doesnt bring your things back, but I am really sorry all the same.
  
  Here is the statute you referenced, which I am well aware of its guidelines:
  
  504B.271 TENANT'S PERSONAL PROPERTY REMAINING IN PREMISES.
  Subdivision 1.Abandoned property.
  
  (a) If a tenant abandons rented premises, the landlord may take possession of the tenant's personal property remaining on the premises, and shall store and care for the property. The landlord has a claim against the tenant for reasonable costs and expenses incurred in removing the tenant's property and in storing and caring for the property.
  
  From a legal perspective, which I did double check with our lawyer for good measure, the tenant/landlord law surrounding abandonment is not applicable here.  You did not abandon a rented premises like the apartment or garage you pay for monthly.  You do not pay to rent that storage unit from us, and we have never given you the authority to use that space.  We have no claim against you it was simply a clean-up of the property so that people could rent out the available storage units, which is what we were having requests for.
  
  In good faith we contacted the entire building about each storage unit that had stuff in it that was not authorized/approved for use.  Some of those storage units have had things in them since we took over the building in 2019, and we knew that most of it was from past tenants from years ago.  But, we wanted to be sure.  So we reached out to the current tenants to ask everyone to let us know if anything was theirs before we cleared everything out.  The storage units were even listed out as the only ones accounted in Calebs email.
  
  You are the only ones who had personal items thrown away because you did not respond.  No one else had any issues.  I understand you were in ******* for an extended period, but you still need to check your emails occasionally.  *** traveled many times for extended trips to ****** and ******, and Ive never gone more than a few days without checking in on things at home.  What if there was a last minute snow storm and your car was in the lot?  You would have been towed if we hadnt heard from you when we sent out notice to stay out of the lot during snow removal.  
  
  There were 10 days from the notice on April 22nd to May 2nd when we worked there.  This has nothing to do with disposing of items that were in your rented space that we knew were yours.  These were unclaimed items in an unrented space as far as we were concerned.  
  
  If you want to pursue this in court, then that is your right to do so.  I would advise you to show your lawyer this letter as well.
  
  Regards,
  
  ***************************

   

• Review fromJonny M

  Date: 07/18/2023

  1 star

  Jonny M

  Date: 07/18/2023

  I have had nothing but a terrible experience renting from The Stepping Stone Group and would never recommend entering into a lease with this company. While you are looking for a place to live with them, they are very helpful and responsive, but once that lease is signed, their communication with you ends. I moved into a nice apartment that they oversee and decided that I was going to move into another building that they manage when my lease ended. BIG MISTAKE! All units have a 24 hour turn-around time (meaning that the person living in your new unit moves out the day before you move in, giving 24 hours for them to come into the unit and do all necessary work to bring it up to par before you move in. You have to turn in your keys for the previous unit by noon on the last day of your lease, and cannot pick up the new keys until noon the following day, and if the new lease date starts on a weekend, YOU HAVE A 30 MINUTE WINDOW TO PICK THE NEW KEYS UP or you CANNOT move in until the next business day, leaving you stranded with your things in a moving truck. Upon move out, I made sure to leave the place in great shape, with nothing more than normal wear and tear and minimal paint touch up, but have a charge for $700 for painting. Mind you, this was a 750 sf unit (again with nothing more than a couple s**** holes to patch and do some touch up paint to). I have called multiple times and left voicemails as well as emailed about the charge and have not heard a peep back from anyone. PLEASE SAVE YOURSELF AND DO NOT RENT FROM THE STEPPING STONE GROUP! If you do decide to rent from them, be sure to document EVERYTHING in pictures and videos before and after move in so you don't have to deal with what I have had to.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 08/30/2024

  Hi *****,

  I apologize, I missed this submission last summer, so I wanted to make sure to reply to you!

  I took at look at the security deposit disposition letter from the apartment you moved out of at ****** before moving into ***************, where you currently reside with us.

  There was no $700 painting charge assessed to your deposit, nor was there any charge assessed to your deposit because as you stated, you left the place in great shape!  :). I don't have the ability to attach the letter, but I have copied the details of the letter below:

  Amount to be Refunded:

  $1,360.00 - deposit held

  $6.89 - interest earned

  $1,366.89 - total refund

  All of our leases end at noon on the last day of the month and all leases start at noon on the first day of the month, which is an industry standard.  From all of the leases I have taken over from other management companies, they all read with the same timeline.  However, I do apologize that you were only offered a 30 minute window for key pick-up.  This is not our standard practice, as we historically set key pick-up from noon-1pm if it landed on a weekend, and if someone needed to coordinate outside of that timeline, we would work with them to make those private arrangements.  

  I say this in past tense though, because we changed that policy in January 2024, but I appreciate you bringing this up as a past frustration!  Today, if key pick-up lands on a Saturday or Sunday, our office staff works a full business day now vs. coming in outside of normal business hours for one hour.  This allows new tenants to pick up their keys within the same office hours as the weekdays.  As always though, if there is a private arrangement that needs to be made ahead of time, we try to make that work.

  Thanks!

  *******

• Review fromKim P

  Date: 06/14/2023

  1 star

  Kim P

  Date: 06/14/2023

  They took over managing our apartments at **************** in *********** - when I moved out they claim to have no record of my deposit and failed to inform me of any outstanding balance they claim I owe. At their request, I submitted my copy of the cashed check and the lease which stipulated the payment for deposit and they will not return my calls or emails. I'm taking them to court at this point just to get a resolution on their clerical error. Awful.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 06/19/2023

  ***,

  I'm not sure where the confusion is here...we ACH'ed the funds to you on June 2nd.  I will email you the receipt right now, so you can see it, as there isn't a way for me to upload it in this BBB response.  As soon as you brought this to our attention, we looked it up in the system inherited from 10th Floor and found that you were indeed correct - you had a $500 deposit on file with them.  This was resolved on June 2nd though as the funds were directly deposited into the account that you set up to receive e-payment on.  Please reach out to me directly if you still have questions at ***********************************.

  Thanks,

  *******

• Review fromS. S.

  Date: 05/31/2023

  2 stars

  S. S.

  Date: 05/31/2023

  Late October or early November all the carbon monoxide (CO) detectors went off in our unit. My roommate felt sick and dizzy and the dog vomited earlier that evening. We opened all the windows and called the fire department. Since it had time to air out they didnt detect anything. Center point tested the furnace (not the oven on the first floor) so they said it must have been faulting alarms. Basically ignoring the obvious physical symptoms two of the occupants of the unit experienced. Next day TSSG stone group replaced all fire/CO detectors. Roommate buys new floor CO detector. Month later, while both me and my roommate were out of town, my dog was staying alone for the night in between house sitters. I received a text from my downstairs neighbors that they heard an alarm from the neighbors. I got on the pet cam and it was actually coming from our second floor unit. I was extremely shaken as my dog was home alone and he sleeps on the floor, the floor detector was going off as well as two other detectors. I quickly had the downstairs neighbors go up into our unit and open all the windows until my other neighbor could come and get my dog. After that I contacted TSSG voicing my very real concerns and requesting they get this fixed ASAP or we wanted to move. The agents were extremely difficult to get ahold of. They placed the responsibility on ** to call the gas company and have them check. As we dont have access to every unit this was an unrealistic idea and an unprofessional dodge of both business and legal responsibility. Agent finally offered to call the gas company for **. Nothing ever happened probably never called. Turns out it was the downstairs neighbors oven that had been installed and known to be faulty. The negligence of this issue could have caused death and they couldnt have been less on top of it. We extended our lease one month to May 1st due to limited housing options April 1st.

  The Stepping Stone Group

  Date: 06/01/2023

  Susan, 
  

  This post came at quite a surprise. We would have loved to have work through this together after this scare 8-9 months ago, as a lot of this frustration seems to have formed from misperception about what the correct process is in a situation like this. I do not want to downplay the seriousness of the situation, but I also want to clarify that I would not have had our team communicate anything differently than what was instructed to you.
  

  In reviewing what you outlined, I have a few comments to clarify:

  1. Centerpoint Energy is the gas leak detection expert, not Stepping Stone. If we had tried to handle this ourselves, we would have been putting you all in danger. Centerpoint techs are qualified and trained specifically for situations like this to ensure safety, and as such, it is standard practice to contact Centerpoint directly if you suspect a gas leak. In any building you are in. They can move quickly and shut off any points of concern to then instruct the property owner to fix. They call it “red tagging” the source.

  2. When other properties have called Centerpoint Energy out for a suspected gas leak over the years, Centerpoint is simply given access to the lockbox that we keep on-site with a full set of keys for emergency situations like this. There was nothing unrealistic or unprofessional in this process. Once again, we wanted you to call the experts directly to describe what you were experiencing, as they would have access to the entire property as needed once on-site.

  2. Centerpoint Energy did return a second time and, as you mentioned, this time identified a gas leak in Unit 1’s oven. I would agree with you that I would have expected Centerpoint to have been more thorough on your initial call to them, but that is a frustration to communicate to Centerpoint, not Stepping Stone. If Centerpoint is the expert, and they say that there is not a leak after they tested everything, we follow their lead. Once unit 1’s oven was identified as an issue, we immediately got it repaired and resolved.

  I explain all of this in hopes of helping you understand why we have the processes in place that we do, and why we communicated the instructions that we did. I am so sorry if this was not understood upfront, and I will talk to the team about making sure to better communicate the reasons behind processes. Most importantly, I am glad that everyone was safe, as gas leaks are a very serious issue.

  I am happy to discuss this more, if needed. My email is [email protected].

  Thank you,

  Heather