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.