DO NOT use HomeUdream.com (previously Courtyard007) to rent a Hutong in Beijing - All the stories, feedbacks about Jenny and homeudream, their dishonesty, and bad practises. Victim too? Send me an email at courtyard007.victim@gmail.com, I'll share your story here

Holly changed her name to “Jenny”, courtyard007 renamed Homeudream.com

Some people still contact me on cases that happens with our lovely Holly. I’ve decided to update this blog to give updated accurate informations to help people to avoid her or fall in the same situation as me.

This website really helps people in Beijing who want to use her service

I’ve received many emails of people reaching me to say thank you. They were about to use her service and decided after reading the blog to not use it. Even if that’s probably not enough to completely stop her, it contributes to make Beijing a better place to live for foreigners(and locals!). Thank you for everyone sending me their stories and who have contributed!

As a consequence, she had to change the name of her Business, and her english name! It feels like nothing, but glad we put a spoke on her wheel !. It’s the least that could happen!

Her new Business Name: HomeUdream

“Holly” decided to change the name of the company to “HomeUdream” . The previous domain name (courtyard007.com) is not accessible anymore. I can understand why: if you type of “courtyard007” in Google you’ll find the website you’re currently reading ranking #1 😉 . Hopefully that blog will reach the first rank when you type the new business name “homeUdream”. Her new website where the scam happens is now: https://homeudream.com/

Her new “english name”: Jenny

She also changed her name from Holly to Jenny. I guess too much bad things were associated to that name in the real estate space 🙂

Her wechat id remain the same: hoholyly. Here her wechat card:

Story#7: Jenny, from homeudream.com: “your boyfriend cheating on you with some other girl”

I was one of the courtyard007 (renamed homeudream.com) victims and wanted to share my horrible (yet hilarious) experience with Holly (now calling herself Jenny) and the house with you. And I’d like to name it…. That Bitch Won’t Let You Win

To be more specific I think I took over the hutong house on Zhangzizhong Road after the tenants in your Story #2 moved out. And yes, even though that we and the former tenants found each other over social media network, Holly (Jenny) insisted us pay her the agent fee (one month rent). We end up splitting the 7000 kuai with the former couple, and I’m pretty sure that this was due to my “negotiation capability”, otherwise we would probably end up paying her 7000 kuai each. That was just the beginning.

During my 4 months staying in the hutong house (December 2015 to March 2016), I experienced so much drama with the house and Holly (Jenny) and Holly’s “assistants”.

First of all, they were not cooperative on the registration thing for my American boyfriend. They rescheduled 3 times and when they finally did, they brought a fake contract, fake landlord information, and told us to not speak a word in front of the police. Sketchy AF.

Secondly, everything in the house just kept getting broken — the AC, the heater, the shower, and the laundry machine. The most ridiculous one was the shower — it took 2 hours to get the water warm and it would get cold again when you use it for 10 mins, which is not even enough time for one person to finish shower. I texted Holly (Jenny) about the situation and it roughly took a month for her to finally get us a new machine. (This also involved me calling her 3 times a week and constantly sending WeChat messages to her assistants.)

The third thing was the bugs. Well, I know this may happen to a lot of the hutongs but I figured I should still point it out for tenants who are scared of bugs — I mean, they are huge ass motherfuckers. 5cm long beetles, and they even fly! Ohhh how can I forget about the scorpion that popped up in my bathroom at midnight? Wonderful! Since February everyday when I first came back home, the first thing to do was to kill bugs, but they kept finding their ways in. I texted Holly(Jenny) and asked them to fix this. No reply. Then one day at 3am, a beetle climbed on my bed and got under my blanket. I straight up flipped. I left the house that night and gave her an angry phone call, asking her to fix this in 3 days. I got a message for her the next day, promising to look into this. However, 3 days later when I got back to the house — nothing changed!

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and decided to move out earlier. Knowing how much of a bitch Holly(Jenny) is and there’s no way I could get my 2 months rent back, I offered to move out ahead of time, and she could keep the extra rent. ALL I WANTED was my deposit back (7000 kuai). So I moved out early April (my lease was till May 7), expecting to get my deposit in May. However, in May Holly(Jenny) texted me saying there were water stains on the mattress, and because of the damage she would keep the deposit.

AND HERE IS THE FUNNY PART —

I remembered it clearly that when I moved out in March the mattress was fine, so I challenged her. Then she replied that it was some sort of “sex juice”, trying to embarrass me. After I explained it wasn’t me, she shamelessly indicated that it could be my boyfriend cheating on me with some other girl. Great move Holly (Jenny), and I gave you the credit for your imagination. I was beyond pissed at that moment. I called her, told her straight up to cut the bullshit and that I wanted my money back. I told her I would be at her apartment 3 days later to pick up my money. She agreed.

Three days later, I showed up at her door at the time we agreed on. But of course, she was out having lunch — again, trying to add up that inconvenience. I power walked to the restaurant. She insisted to take 2000 kuai from my deposit for the mattress and brought up the sex juice thing again. I didn’t want to make a big scene in the restaurant, so I went home with 5000 kuai.

After that I was so pissed so I deleted her on WeChat. Thus I don’t have any screenshots except for this one of us talking about the bugs.

Last week I walked past Holly’s office on Gulou East and saw they were getting rid of the shop. I hope they’ve finally gone out of business.

Story#6: Even Beijing’s lawyer get upset from homeudream.com

Two days ago my contact was passed to a friend of friend because this girl and her roommates were having some issues with the place they rented from courtyard 007 (now homeudream.com). Im a lawyer so they want some professional help.

The main issue about the situation is that the police came to my friends place saying the place is illegal and they gonna tear them down very soon, basically forcing my friends out because they are no longer allowed to live there once the official decision is made.

My friends just want their deposit back, and their lease gonna end within about 20 days.

The lease agreement they had was poorly and terribly drafted as well. I met these girls and talked about the solutions and they want me do the lawyer talk to the landlord.

I did, this morning, but with no reply. So at the afternoon i called her and pretend to be someone that wants apartment so i can get to meet her in person and talk about the issue.

When i got there, there was another white girl looking for new places so ended up both of us checking the apartment. i wasn’t looking and told the landlord actually im here for other stuff if you have time we can talk about it. she figured out i was the one that text her this morning and switch attitude to this “i dont know you and you have nothing to do with these, i can speak english so let your friends talk to me directly”.

i was trying to be polite but on point, laying out the facts about how many laws been broken and its her obligation to give back the deposit, whether the place will be demolished has no relevance here. But she just kept that attitude the whole, it was a short meet up and i think she doesn’t want the other white girl know what we were actually discussing (the white girl can understand and speak mandarin pretty well and we were talking in mandarin).

But anyway it ended up us she switch the topics and all these BS and drove away as i was still talking to her and she just got into the car and close the door. Refused any further discussion.

The whole idea about actually writing to you is, although I’m local and this is just a favor for a friend of friend who i met only twice. But i mean i feel like this lady is targeting at foreigners because of the language barrier and culture difference and more important you guys don’t know the laws here.

So what im thinking is, i know i said im a lawyer but actually I haven’t got my license yet, i work in a law firm and may know someone who is really damn good and specialize in this kinda area. You mentioned on the website that there are so many victims out there and i was thinking about possible class action or at lease some fines from government to this lady and her business.

Story #5: Jenny (previously Holly), the Hutong vampire

Andy kindly shared me hi experience with her:

We are victims of the hutong vampire that haunts the narrowed laneways inside the second ring of old Beijing.

Some say she was once a bright girl named Jenny, who worked in her father’s fruit shop in south Gulou in the 1920’s. Yet another tale says she was called Holly (now called Jenny), and Dongsi was where she was a cleaner in the 1940’s.

There seem to be many tales, but they’ve been obfuscated and lost, like her original face, through changes to hide her predatory essence behind the the deft hands of plastic surgery.

She charges exorbitant amounts for her many homes, and though they may be decent, other agents are at least cheaper, provide a television, and have heard rumours of her dark nature.

She tries to charge us 10,000 per month even though there was a dreadful drain smell permeating from the bathroom shower, and her ghouls came not once but thrice to fix it, yet blaming the odious stench on other things.

We managed to negotiate it down 25 per cent, which made us feel like this person in question was of a decent nature, and not filled with avarice.

We were decieved. She seemed to have an excuse for many things or evaded an issue.

In fairness to the vampire, she seemed to once remember her human self, and sent her ghouls to fix minor things but whenever a problem arose, she would send a picture of her on a drip saying she was ill.

However, these pictures were originating from her plastic laboratory, an expensive penchant she has for hiding her identity, just as she had changed her name after multiple legal debacles.

Her team of ghouls would also waste our time, say they’d come Monday at noon, not arrive all day, and I’d light the beacons to again request their aid, and again, I’d wait Tuesday during my free time and work time, and they’d not come, and Wednesday again, and then they’d appear on a Thursday when we weren’t there.

And the ghouls were argumentative and kept saying they were coming. This proved to be a particular problem when the vampire changed our Wi-Fi without our consent or informing us, and though it was faster, it became prone to continuous instability, requiring several more weekly waits for the ghouls to appear and repair.

The house also sustained water damage during the summer, and we’ve sent numerous pictures attest this fact to our vampiric liege.

She also forgot we lived in the house at one point asking who I was, and this makes perfect sense for what I’m about to say now:

We got a text from her two weeks ago asking us to hide. I called her and asked why? She said the landlord and “an official” (love the opaque answer) would be there to inspect the house at 4pm. She explained we weren’t meant to be there and had to hide.

This house wasn’t meant to be rented to foreigners but it turns put she does it anyway, because it’s more profitable, even if she’s caught, then not doing it. We are under the impression the landlord doesn’t know.

We grabbed everything foreign: booked, magnets, plugs, pictures, passports, animals, eeeeeverything, and dragged it out into two suitcases and waited by our canal.

She called us and then said we had to leave in two weeks, which was 12 days ago, the house was being taken, we weren’t meant to be living there so she lied. We learned she has fake contracts for the Chinese landlords, they don’t meet their tenants who aren’t Chinese, charges too much, and she knew this was happening because she thought we’d already vacated this house but our contract wasn’t up until the end of October because she’s perpetrating this illicit scam with many foreigners.

We’ve spent 12 days in a flurry trying to secure a new place, and other human agents have heard of this vampire and detest her.

I even saw her trying to sell cats for thousands and thousands of yuan. She’s a money-grubbing vampire and best avoid her grasp lest ye get screwed.

She wants us to leave the house tomorrow so her workers can inspect before she gives back the deposit… I don’t think so.

Yours sincerely,

Vampire haters.

She Takes Your Money Like a Vampire Takes Your Blood.

Her houses always have construction problems.

Rented 3 houses from her in different locations, each house had multiple problems such as flooding, broken lights, and damaging the neighbor’s pipes during renovation.
The second house had serious flooding problems because they didn’t build the pipes very well, there are some days you smell toilet all the time, neighbors would also come knock the door and complain to you.
When there is a problem, she will send workers over to fix it but the problem is never truly fixed. She always uses the cheapest workers available who use the cheapest materials.

She’s not the landlord.

The third house we rented with her, the original landlord (not Holly) would often come to visit the house. He cared about the house’s condition, after all he knows that we pay a high rent for the place. He was shocked to find to find out that Holly was charging triple the amount that she was paying the him. The landlord also told us that that Holly was quite rude to him on the phone. Whenever the landlord called asking about rent, Holly would redirect him (the landlord) to her husband; he never picked up the phone.

Fortunately, the landlord didn’t try to ask for money from us. Once we moved out he asked us for some tips on how to generally improve the quality of the house as a whole.It would probably have been easier to deal with the landlord directly rather than having Holly act as the middleman.

“Deposit”

So, at the majority of places that you rent, the landlord will ask for 1 month’s deposit. Holly wanted 2. Not a problem because we take good care of the places that we live in. We refurnished the house with our own furniture.

We had to break our contract early, and she didn’t return anything, citing minor damages and other frivolous and ridiculous costs. At the end of it all, we just wanted to leave so we left everything we had purchased for the house behind. She wants to take everything from you, even though you were her customer for three years, she doesn’t care.

4) She does illegal business, she takes your money like vampire take your blood, why still people rent with her?

A friendly warning to people in Beijing, her business is illegal since she is always secretly renting all the government owned(公家） hutong houses. She never give back your deposit money when you move out, even though you have dozens of construction problems during your stay? Even though the house looks more interesting than other normal hutong houses, but according to all those terrible things, do you still feel safe to rent from her?

You’re one of HomeUdream – Courtyard007 too? Send me an email at courtyard007.victim[at]gmail.com

Story #4 – Flooding, Gas Leakage and Illegal Construction Work

I lived in one of Courtyard007’s Homeudream apartments for less than three months and decided to leave after two floods and a gas leakage.

1st Flooding

After three days in the countryside, I came back to Beijing to find my apartment completely flooded. The floor was still wet, a few bumps had formed and the carpet, shoes and anything touching the ground were completely soaked. I saw the agent in the courtyard (she lives there as well), informed her about the damages and asked her to send someone to have a look.

She replied that she did not know what was wrong and that I just had to deal with it, because the rain had been exceptionally heavy. When I insisted she deal with the problem, the agent switched topics and told me that calling her “Ayi” was highly offensive as I was older than her. I apologized and explained that it was a genuine language mistake. But she kept the accusations coming.

She then told me I had to inform her every time I left Beijing for more than one day. She concluded by saying that she was going home otherwise she would beat me up and that I should never disturb her on her days off. No worker showed up to look at the apartment.

2nd Flooding

In July, on one of the days when heavy rain soaked Beijing, I asked the agent to keep an eye on my apartment while I was at work. When I sent a message to ask about the apartment, she replied that everything was fine.

However, when I came home I realized that my apartment flooded once again and that someone had been inside and moved a couple of objects to avoid them getting wet. The agent then told me that since it didn’t flood much, she felt no need to tell me. The amount of water that sprang up from the floor when pressing on the wooden planks made it obvious that the apartment had a major structural issue.

The water seemed to come from underneath the floor, probably due to a complete lack of insulation. If within a week, a few wooden objects and some food turned moldy, one could only imagine the impact that this would have on a resident’s health. Again the agent refused to send someone or acknowledge this was a major issue. When I threatened to leave if she took no action, she told me that I had no right to move out over what she viewed as a small problem.

Wet floor, moldy and wet walls and mold on wooden table

Gas Leakage

Living in a hutong and having to use a gas bottle I decided to buy a gas detector. When the alarm went off one night I asked the agent to come and do a proper check the next day. Instead of calling on a qualified technician, the agent just called the man selling gas bottles, who did a dubious test with soap and water.

When I told the guy to take away the gas bottle, as the test failed to meet any reasonable safety standard, the agent did not intervene, nor did she suggest other alternatives, and just asked for her 100RMB of deposit back.

Construction Work

After one month living in the flat, the agent started expanding her house. As a result the courtyard shrank by a few meters, causing all the bicycles to be parked directly in front of my entrance.

Workers showed up on weekends, and when I told the agent that this was illegal, she pretended not to know and said that the renovations would be over in 5 days. After two months of ongoing construction work, the courtyard was regularly filled with dust and rubbish.

Rubbish outside and inside the courtyard due to construction work

Other Issues

The agent instructed me not to talk to any neighbours and never to reveal how much rent was.
The agent never gave me my internet details. She charged me the full monthly fee of 120RMB, but she was most likely sharing the internet among a few households, considering how poor the speed was.
The agent told me never to contact her directly and to just write in a group chat with a cleaning lady and a few handymen. When I mentioned that they did not reply to many of my questions, she reiterated that I could not write to her directly.
The contract was very dodgy and only later did I realise that she had failed to include the photocopy of the landlord’s ID as well as of the property.

Agent telling me not to contact her directly — Agent telling me not to contact Jenny directly

Story #3 – “She is the worst and no one should rent from her”

So I rented with Holly (now called Jenny) for two years in a hutong place near Dengshikou. It started off pretty sketchy as she wanted something astronomical for the place and showed me a bunch of other places that were not even close to being completed. During the lease signing process, I’m already a bit alarmed by her “fees for service” and “late fees” and no protections for me along with her entire attitude towards the process. We argue for a bit before she ends up knocking off the fees that she herself acknowledges are just there so that she can make money off of me. I end up signing even though the place is not perfect and she is super duper sketchy.

The first year and a half, though, by and large go smoothly. There are some issues with repairs, but the apartment holds up for the most part and is relatively comfortable. The floor heating eats my electricity bill like no other. Her “assistant”, by the way, is awesome – a super kind and helpful guy who was FAR easier to work with than Holly herself. And I had to call him far too many times.

Shit gets weird when in November of my second year, this random guy shows up outside my door and asks for his “rent” and wants to know what the hell am I doing in his apartment. Turns out this guy is the original landlord of the place (or the son of) and Holly (or rather her sketchy husband) is late with their yearly rent. This guy was friends with Holly’s husband, who apparently rented out this guy’s place on a ten-year lease, promising to fix it up, but that just he and his family would be living there. And that any renovations would be run by the guy. And, the kicker, that the rent for THE YEAR is 3x my monthly payments to Ms. Holly.

So this guy is grumpy and is like – pay me my rent or get out. I call Holly. She doesn’t answer. I tell him that his deal is between Holly and he and that, according to me, I have a valid contract with her and he needs to take this breach of contract up with her. He leaves.

I finally get in touch with her and tell her what went down and she starts screaming at me. Tells me that I shouldn’t have answered the door and why was I contacting this guy and how I’m the worst tenant and always complaining and blahblahblah. She threatens that she’ll never give my deposit back (and I’ve also just paid the next three month’s rent to her) and she’ll change the locks and all sorts of other stuff. I’m shocked because SHE IS CRAZY. She ends up backing down after I fire back threatening legal action and going to the police and complaining to the media. She says she’ll take care of it and when I ask her next, she says that her husband has dealt with it.

SPOILER ALERT – she didn’t fucking take care of it. This guy shows up at my office in March and tells me I need to start paying him rent. He has sent a cease and desist letter to Holly and her slimeball husband telling them because they didn’t pay the rent or notify him of the repairs and are illegally subletting it, that the contract is null and void. I tell him that that’s all well and good, but that the contract ends when you get a court to certify it. He gets frustrated and is like – well, I’m going to call the police. I tell him he can call whomever he wants, but as far as I’m concerned, my contract with Holly is still valid. So he calls the police. The police show up and, in the best moment of China being China, are like “WOAH – this is a foreigner issue!? Sorry bud, this one’s all yours” and quickly leave. Another amazing moment of that interaction is when I call Holly and say – the original landlord is here and would like to speak with either you or your husband as you have been avoiding his calls – and she immediately hangs up. I call her husband and the same result.

I end up getting a lawyer to handle all the go-between with this terrible terrible woman and the original landlord as I am kind of over it all. He deals with it and ends up getting a deal for me where my deposit is used as my last month’s rent so I don’t have to pay her a cent more. I move out well before my final day, both as insurance and because I’m leaving the country anyway and give her back the keys. As part of that deal, I wouldn’t say anything bad about her to anyone. Which, when she was showing the apartment to other people, I held to. AND I AM SO SORRY I KEPT MY SILENCE (if you are reading this, guy who saw my apartment, i’ll buy you many drinks to make up for it). Well, breaking that deal, because what she does is messed up and people should know about it.

A word of advice – do not rent from ANYONE unless you can get/see the ORIGINAL certificate showing that the person in front of you (and you can crosscheck it with their IDs) is the leaseholders with state-granted leasing rights. Holly and her husband and the shitbox Ikea-fied apartments her little cabal rents out do NOT have that power. And, as someone said earlier, public housing given by the government (which many of these hutong apartments are) is usually NOT allowed to be sublet. And, what makes it even worse, is that oftentimes, the actual owners (or rather leaseholders, because this is China) have no idea what is going on. Holly or her husband or both, go around Dongcheng and Xicheng to these individuals, pretend that they are just a fun couple with a kid who are doing their own thing and want a 10-year lease, promise to fix it up and then turn around and rent it out to unsuspecting foreigners. In theory, this could be a totally awesome business model that is socially responsible (preserving the cultural intangibles of hutong life) and, even more importantly, one where everyone wins. The original owners get a renovated apartment with a nice chunk of change every year, Holly and her husband make a nice profit, and her tenants get their dream of living in a comfortable, historic Beijing hutong with their fixed-gear bikes and roof terraces. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different because HOLLY IS A SCAM ARTIST who is only looking to make a quick buck. Had she been honest and forthcoming with both the landlords and the tenants, there wouldn’t even be this website. We’d all be constantly referring our friends to her, the landlords would love her and tell all their friends about her. More hutong life would be preserved and everyone wins. yay.

But whatever. She is the worst and no one should rent from her or continue to subsidize her shitty business. We all know that law and order are malleable and subject to the whims of the state in China and that many things can happen (but usually won’t), so try and protect yourself as best you can by staying as far away from this woman as possible.

More than 800 people saw the website, and I hear more and more people that was about to visit or rent that decided to retract their decision!

Please email me at [email protected] if you want to share your story with HomeUdream.com , it will help people to stay away from her, and really helpful for everyone in Beijing!

Story #2 “I want to make more money out of the situation”

It was a old hutong apartment in zhangzizhonglu
And she was nice with me and my husband, sending someone quickly when things used to break (way too often).
She was also patient when we were late with rent
The problem came when we had to leave
We told her that we were leaving two months in advance, because we were leaving China, and I also told her that I would have found another couple to take over our lease, so she wouldn’t have lost any money.

She said that it was ok, but to get my deposit back I would have had to charge the new tenants, not only the two months left in our contract and the deposit, but also the agent fee.
Because she literally told me that she wanted to make more money out of the situation
Basically she told that if I wanted our deposit back I would have had to be her agent and making her earn more money

– ok, but this agent money will not go back to you ?

That’s right. The agent money was for her

We ended up losing half of our deposit because we had to split an agent fee with the new couple that took over our lease

Her exact words were: I want to make more money out of the situation
Not only it’s not fair, it also sounds kind of illegal since there was not agent involved.
I showed the apartment to the new tenants.
And my husband and I ended up losing half of our deposit even if we found someone who took over the lease and We the apartment in perfect condition .
She always seems available to help you and be a good landlord but in the end she only tries to suck money out of you.

homeudream jenny trying to make the most of your money

HomeUdream- Poor Business Practices

We started to share the blog 2 days ago about courtyard007 (homeudream) in Beijing, and seems like the impact is great! Just wanted to let you know that this is working!

Over 500 visitors have viewed this page since we started it.
Some editors from influential magazines are waiting to write about it. Once we get some more testimonials they’ll get started.
Many victims of Courtyard007’s business practices have reached out to me, it seems like it’s a bigger issue than what we thought. There are several WeChat groups that have been created just to talk about the problems with Courtyard007.
When you type “courtyard007”, the blog now ranks on the first page of Google. I remembered trying to google about it when I wanted to rent from them- but found nothing. Hopefully this will help people to find information about it. Also, the more stories we write, better this blog will rank in Google.
3 new stories will be published in the coming days

And here some of the first feedbacks from wechat:

Everyone should be wary of Holly. My friend rented an apartment with her and it turned out to be illegal. The true landlord of the apartment showed up to my friend’s place of work with the police. He had to hire a lawyer to get everything sorted.

We lived in a holly hutong in 2011. Left because we were freezing to death. Her husband would come to “fix” things but just chill on our couch with *****. Another friend I have is having a similar experience right now with her

Here the impact of our website so far :

By the way, a new colleague of mine was going to rent one of holly’s apartment and then changed her mind after seeing my post, so on a small scale it’s working!

Do not hesitate to spread this blog, and email us at [email protected] if you want to share your story with Courtyard007, it will really helpful for everyone in Beijing!

Story #1 My bad experience, an illegal rent with homeudream (courtyard007)

In 2015, I started living in a Hutong located around the Beixinqiao area. They run the website www.courtyard007.com (now homeudream.com)

Illegal Rent

So let’s start by saying that a lot of the houses that Courtyard007(HomeUdream) rents are not owned by themselves. That in itself isn’t a problem, the problem is that the houses are owned by the government (Screen shot attached below). These government-owned houses are not allowed to be re-rented to other tenants.

Therefore you can’t obtain a housing slip, here are some things that you need your housing slip for:

Getting a new passport
Getting a driver’s license
Signing a new work contract
Renewing your visa

Therefore the contract given to you is not an official government-approved contract.

Unwanted visits

The contract (that is not legally binding), stipulates that any future viewing of the apartment can be done in the final month of the contract. However, starting from 2 months before the expiration of my housing contract, a number of guests wanted to view the house. They were forceful and at times rude.

Unreasonable Deposit Deductions

At the end of my term, the agent deducted a number of costs from my deposit. Here are some, with evidence.

1,000RMB- deducted for a small stain on the sofa that is barely visible.
1,000RMB- For a small stain on a mattress. This mattress was one that I purchased on my own to replace the original mattress that wasn’t in great condition
600RMB- For two missing IKEA chairs that cost 120RMB each. (she gave me back this money when I get back the chairs)
200RMB- For a missing A/C Remote cover
300RMB- For each missing key- keys cost at most 15RMB to replace. (that she gave me back this money when I get get a copy)

courtyard007-holly-deposit-handling — How Courtyard007 handle your deposit

I asked the agent to come to the apartment 3 weeks before the contract expiry so she could tell me what I needed to fix and she refused to do so. These costs weren’t brought to my attention until it was too late for me to fix them. I talked to the previous tenant and he told me the exact same story, his deposit was 8,000RMB and he lost all of it.

Other little things

The hutong comes with floor heating- it would be great if it worked though.

I requested repairs during winter several times but nobody ever came. They would come over and say that the room was really warm and that I was imagining things- my thermostat said 15 degrees, and believe me, it felt like it.

Conclusion

By renting with Courtyard007(HomeUdream), you should expect to lost the majority of your deposit. I’m not the only one, there will be many stories in the following days that details what their experiences are like. You may think that I’m a treated the house poorly but I lived in Beijing for 5 years in 3 different apartments. In my first two places I got 100% of my deposit back, when renting with Courtyard007(HomeUdream), I got a bare fraction of it back. I’m certain that if there was any more “damage”, I wouldn’t have gotten anything back. As a whole, I’m very disappointed with my treatment with Courtyard007, (HomeUdream) and just want to warn anyone else who may do the same.

If you’ve ever rented with Courtyard007 please share your experience with me. I’m not the kind of guy who complains but this entire experience really left a bitter, final taste of Beijing in my mouth.

If you have your story with Courtyard007(HomeUdream), please send an email to [email protected] , I’ll be happy to write your story here.

Enjoy Beijing everyone!