Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/16/2025

  Type:Sales and Advertising Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Advertised gym on website but has been out of service for 6 months. Very little communication with reopening the gym. A big reason people pay higher rent here is for the amenities.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:10/17/2022

  Type:Order Issues
  Status:

  UnansweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My son rented an apartment at Hills On Grand (HOG) 8/14/19. COVID shut live classes down at WSU and still we paid our rent. Finally, for mental health reasons my son moved home in Oct 2020. He discussed with management at the time and found someone to take over the lease. The two of them worked together to get all the paperwork signed, and the boys were told about a redecorating fee that was supposedly transferred to the new leases account, and then my son turned in his keys 11/30/2020 and left. A year later we started getting calls asking for $500 for a releasing fee that we were never told about and no one could explain what it was or why it wasnt described in our account that way, or why there was even a balance on the account when my son was allowed to move out, turn in the keys and sign move out paperwork. The last time I talked to someone in the leasing office (now ******************* Hills) I was told they were doing me a favor by collecting the money because if they escalated it I would be sent to court. No one can provide documentation as to why we owe this fee. The company is managed by young students who seem to have no contact with their parent company. Their procedures and record keeping are questionable and possibly unethical. Id like the $500 amount owed erased and for them to stop threatening me.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:09/12/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  There are multiple issues. In 2021 I applied for a lease with Hills on Grand. I had a concern that I would graduate in May of 2022 and the lease ended in July 2022. I was told at that time I could buy out of my lease for a fee. When I graduated, I was told that I had to continue to pay my rent or sublet the apartment. I am not the only person that has been told that they could pay a fee to buy out of the lease. Most importantly, I left the apartment one week after graduation (May 7th, 2022) and did not return until July 16th to finish cleaning the apartment and turn my keys in. On July 19th, 2022 at 6:03 pm I turned my keys in to an employee of hills on grand. I received my final billing statement that shows a $90.00 fee for not returning my keys, but I did. Also, they use simple bills and also on my final billing statement from Hills on Grand I am not only being double charged $40.99 for Oct-Nov, I am being billed a pro-rated amount for ****July for approx $124.00. I have been trying to resolve this issue since the end of July. I was not in the apartment for most of May, none in June and 3 days in July. I have been asking for a final bill to pay and all Pullman Hills on Grand can tell me is to call simple bills that they need an email from simple bills to change anything even though they can see the that I;m being over charged. They also are not holding their employee accountable for not marking my name off when I returned my keys. I am not responsible for their employee not doing their job. I need the $90.00 removed and I need simple bills fixed so I can pay my final bill. thank you

  Business Response

  Date: 09/13/2022

  Hello,

  We would like to apologize for this experience you are having with ************ Hills and would like to help clear up some confusion! The "Buy out" does not exist in any form, except a Relet fee per our fee schedule within our leases. All leases offered by ************ Hills offers a Relet Option to any tenants that wish to end their 12 month committed contracts early. Our activity logs well document interactions and explanations between management and residents, so if you would like to note the times we have explained the process please feel free to reach out for more personable answers to your questions. Our management team has been working around the clock to ensure that charges are accurate to the best of our abilities and have not found any error in the key return process thus far. Our records indicate that we have not received your keys, and that we have requested any evidence you might have pertaining to the date and time of your key return.

  All dispute processes require a level of evidence above heresy, hence the complex process of resolving the returned keys without evidence. We also don't have access to your invoice from ***********, hence needing to reach out to them to have them email us a correction. We outsourced utility payments to a third party company, so they can resolve energy related matters with you effectively, while allowing roommates the split payment portal option.

  We understand your frustration and wish to resolve this with you as soon as possible. Please contact *********** to resolve your utility payment through our utility provider. We are still reviewing your key return claims and security footage, so don't lose hope we might be able to remove the charge still!

   

  Have a good afternoon,

  *********************************

  Assistant General Manager

  ************ Hills

  **************

  Customer Answer

  Date: 09/19/2022

   
  Complaint: 18014806
  
  I am rejecting this response because: I am not responsible for your employees making a mistake. I understand it is he said she said but again your employee forgot to mark a box and now your place of business is trying to charge me $90 for someones elses lack of understanding to mark a box. I am not paying the $90. Period. Its taking your place of business 2 plus months to review cameras or come to a conclusion that I did give the keys back?. Why not ask your employees what they did with the keys? I find it odd you put the responsibility on a tenant who has HANDED the keys to an employee and now is being told it doesnt matter you handed it to an employee its your problem. No. Lets me also add there are multiple comments online saying how Im the beginning when said individual Signed lease they would be able to buy out for $500. Im not the only one complaining Im just the only bringing to attention. And at this point that is the least of my worries Im already out of the units. I want my bill fixed. And simple bills is telling me I have to pay $124 and even if that is incorrect they want me to pay it and hopefully get refunded? Again, no. I will continue to deal with simple bills. I will pay the $740 I owe for rent and other utilities but I will not be paying any of the no key return especially since Ive been going back and forth with this business for months. Since July. I Can barely get a call back and then get an email that isnt helpful at all. Truly condescending and unhelpful. I will not allow someone to take money that is unjust. It doesnt take months to fix this. I need to pay rent and I feel uncomfortable paying the entire amount that is on the bill when it is absolutely incorrect. 
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***********************

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/26/2022

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  First, this business did not charge ALL Residents (+ 600 residents) with utility bills from November 2021 to ***** 2022. All residents must pay utilities through ************ and Avista. Residents asked businesses multiple times a month when power would be charged with no call back from businesses or answers. The business then realized its mistake of not charging residents for months and told residents that they must pay the entire missed bill cycle in one payment with possible late fees attached. This being said this became news to residents about one week before the utility bill for ***** was due. Being in a college town and a college life apartment meant hundreds of college students would be paying several hundred dollars which is a large charge for college students. The business then told residents to pay the missed bills in three monthly cycles on top of what they charged for power during that month through second-party simple bills and power coming from Avista. Also, maintenance would not fix or look at cracks in my specific apartment walls, and would not fix insect and mice infestations in multiple apartments blaming residents for the problem. They did not maintain sidewalks during winter making it impossible to go outside for those with physical disabilities, I called multiple times to complain about not being able to use my crutches in inches of snow and that I would have to miss class because they did not maintain their property. The business told me to "figure it out it's winter" when I had just had major surgery and could not navigate the grounds safely, this happened the following two years as well. All residents were given a $275 nonrefundable "redecorating fee" for repairs after moving out. The Business told ALL residents if they had LED Strip lights on walls to leave during move-out and that Residents would not be charged. They then charged residents $30 each for taking down lights and said that this was not covered by $275 redecorating fee.

  Business Response

  Date: 09/09/2022

  Hello,

  We apologize for any undue inconvenience this situation may have caused. I would like this opportunity to clear up some confusion and to assist you with this complaint. We full heartedly suggest reaching out to the property for personal related answers to your questions, as this is a public forum. We have recently changed management firms and during that transition we sent out email notifications that ************ would be unpayable until they finished API integration into our system. We did not plan to halt utility payments for as long as we did, and hope to reassure you that it was a one-time transitional issue. Our communications are on file for your reference upon request for further information regarding our communications roll out. We agreed to even waive a month of utilities as a concession for the extended time it took for our system integration specialists to integrate the new utility software into our company.

  Addressing the issue of being charged for leaving the light stripes: We told residents NOT to place stripe lights at the time of move in, which was contained within their move in folder on a sheet of paper [See attached]. We told residents who asked how to avoid the fine that they would receive a lesser fine, by leaving them and allowing our maintenance team to remove them, since they can do so with minimal damage. The damage left was still the tenants due diligence but lead to $30 fines instead of $120 fines as some faced. No tenant has been able to remove stripe lights from the walls without incurring this fine, unless they followed our adhesives policies due to our wall paint chipping easily. The redecoration fee was meant for normal wear and tear, which Stripe Lights are excluded from, since they are a personal choice to violate policy. We use the redecoration funds to repaint bedroom walls without cost for normal wear and to clean the units of residual dirt from previous tenants (heavy cleans incurring a fine for the man hours it took).

  For snow services we had contracted out the labor to another entity that specialized in snow removal. Depending on if it was actively snowing we did see a cumulation of snow that took several hours for our maintenance teams to assist with. Attached is the invoice of such services. Our team isn't trained in snow operations specifically, so it took them longer to clear sidewalks on our 10 acre property. Moving forward we have purchased new equipment for this year, so we can keep up with the above average winter snow falls the last years have brought. You stated you had called the office and we were unable to assist, which may have been true since the Maintenance team would already be working its way around the property. Please be patient with our 2 man team!

  Lastly, if you have a work order inputted for pests we can discuss the resolutions that were placed in the activity log. Usually we will request a tenant based solution first and will inspect the premises for entry points. If traps and cleaning strategies don't work we request a pest control service at no cost to the tenant. Its imperative we try alternative solutions, so we can decrease the amount of chemicals used on our premises, mainly for tenant safety. Please let us know if this wasn't resolved.

  I hope this has provided some closure to your previous correspondence and please feel free to contact us directly if you need any other assistance.

   

  Best,

  *********************************

  Assistant General Manager

  ************ Hills

  **************