An update- We left our Uptown apartment and when we returned we found that our laptop full of our baby pictures from the first months of her life (which are now gone forever), kitchen appliances, pots and pans and my husband’s handmade jewelry and a Coach purse are GONE. My husband spent months making the jewelry and now it is all gone, including his tools. We drove across country to retrieve these belongings and someone stole what we considered the most important items. I would have laughed at the irony if I wasn’t so pissed/sad. Someone literally ransacked our place because I found jewelry pieces all over, so I’m thinking they were rummaging for anything of value. I don’t have proof that it was someone from Tolbert’s company that stole from us, since we just filed a police report and hopefully will find out something soon. The manager admitted that he sent someone into our apartment while we were gone (to check on the status of the unit since we were moving out) and there was no forced entry. Our door was locked when we arrived, which indicates that the last person in there had a key. When we called the office to report the theft, we were hung up on! How professional, right? The office staff is extremely rude and incompetent. Be VERY, VERY, VERY careful when renting from these people!!!!! I just wish I could go back in time and rent from a different company. Now we are out of a deposit, beloved personal belongings and a home. I’m just sick that the pictures of my baby’s first days of life are gone and that someone may get away with this. I hope that my posts can prevent other people from making this mistake!

I completely regret the day that I signed a lease with Craig Tolbert. I rented an Uptown apartment and found out it is full of lead paint after performing a home lead test. The paint is literally peeling and chipping off of windows, doors, walls - everywhere. You can't open the windows because of the lead dust inside the sill. If you have small children DO NOT rent from Tolbert until getting the apartment tested for lead. They knew I had a baby and still rented the unit to us because they say "they don't know of any lead in their units." HELLO, the building was constructed in the late 1800s, of course it has lead. When we called them to ask about the lead, they said we were prohibited from getting the unit tested. I guess they wanted to wait until our child got lead poisoning to be sure? All they care about is the money, not their tenants. Also, our oven didn't work from day 1, and there were two huge holes in our windows - one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom. You could stick your fist through these holes and bugs came in all of the time. The best part might be the sewage gas that was escaping into our apartment from the basement via a huge hole in our bathroom floor. Our entire apartment smelled of gas, which the gas company said was most like from the sewer - GROSS AND HAZARDOUS. The gas technician's gas detector was beeping like crazy when it was over the hole, indicated a gas leak. Actually, the entire building smells like sewage - our eyes were burning the day we left and we couldn't get out of there fast enough. We had to lose our deposit and break our lease so save our baby from a lifetime of problems due to lead exposure, but it is worth it. My advice is to avoid Tolbert's properties at all costs, or at least take the time to examine (and smell) every inch of the unit before signing the lease. Yuck, yuck, yuck!

Rented from Craig on Broadway. The place was in a good location near Tulane and my work and was kept in good repair. The office was overall pretty helpful and communicative when we had questions or requests. My advice to other students looking for an apartment with him is to start early because a lot of the apartments around the school were already rented when my roommates and I started looking.

Thankfully, I read the negative reviews on this site before signing a lease. When you question him about the condition of the apartment, you will find a defensive and misleading individual.

Rented @ 3615 StCharles,did call for maintenance a couple times and did get service,but you will not get anything after hours if your AC fails or whatever.He does not have his buildings exterminated so there is a constant pest problem.BEWARE and do not sign a 6 mo.lease and CHECK your dates on a 12 mo.lease.He moves as many people out as he can at Mardi Gras.His liars in his office told me the lease was renewable and I got a notice to vacate Jan. 1, a friend found her lease to be only 10 months when it was suppose to be a year. He also tried to stiff me $40 on my deposit but I threatened a small claims suit and he gave me entire deposit back. I would never rent from him again due to way he handled the lease.

I rented from Craig for almost three years and had a pretty good experience. Whenever I had a maintenance problem, his office responded quickly and usually had the problem fixed the same day, which is more than I can say for other landlords that I've rented from in New Orleans. They were also fairly flexible with me a couple times when I wasn't able to get my rent in until a couple days late. I never had a problem with Craig and got my deposit back when I moved out.

Contrary to the review written previously to this one, I had the exact opposite experience dealing with Craig Tolbert. I was nickel and dimed any way I could be. Always paid my rent on time, but that didnt matter. Only received half my deposit back for bogus charges. DO NOT RENT FROM THESE PEOPLE, YOU WILL REGRET IT

Mr. Tolbert I heard has been around for over 40 years & he does such a good job sending his maintenance crew out to repair something within a reasonable time frame. My rent was very reasonable & when it came to refunding my deposit, I received all of it because I cleaned my apartment & never painted any walls & did any damage. I would definately give him an A+ compared to other landlords uptown that I have rented from.

ok my mess started a while back living in new orleans. tolbert rented me a 1 bedroom which looked fine. then a few months went by and WATER started leaking into my place in the bathroom!!!! He still has not fixed my ceiling, and now mold is growing everywhere. my life has become a constant hell because of his should-be-condemned apartment building. Tolbert is the worst slumlord i have ever had, and i have lived in some tough places. NEVER movie into a tolbert apartment.

I LIVED IN THAT BUILDING BEFORE HURRICANE KATRINA. CRAIG IS THE WORST LANDLORD ANYONE COULD RENT FROM. HE DIDNT FIX ANYTHING. ALL HE DID WAS RAISE THE RENT EVERY 9 TO 12 MONTHS. AFTER THE STORM I TRIED TO GET MY STUFF OUT THE APARTMENT HE CHANGED THE LOCKS AND COULDNT BE CONTACTED. I KNOW MY AIR CONDITIONARS,STOVE AND REFRIGATOR ARE STILL IN THE APARTMENT THAT HE IS CHARGING PEOPLE FOR USING.

I go to Tulane University. Craig was my landlord and his house was more disguising than my fraternity house. Mold, leaky ceilings, huge rats are expected. Maintenance is ever elusive and the washer and dryer never worked. There were live exposed wires everywhere and my electricity was intertwined with my neighbors. So who knows who you're going to pay for? Craig is cheap and greedy. His rent is much too high for the dilapidated conditions that I had to suffer through. The AC did not work for half the house and the heater did not work for months. The lock on the door was so poorly installed, that one had to pull the door knob up just to match the lock with the door frame. The appliances that did work were literally from the 80's and those which did not, well I guess doing laundry at the fraternity house wasn't so bad... Stay clear from this horrible landlord/con artist Because no one ever gets their safety deposit back!

I'll tell you a bit about my experiences with Tolbert apartments. I have been in more than one, and a commonality is mushrooms growing from the ceilings...and not just mildew, but massive bolete growths!!! caps, stalks, and all. Not to mention the ever-present water leakage apparent in the bathrooms. Negligence on the part of the maintenance crews, and inability of the management to solve issues. (in fact often making the problems worse!) My advice is to steer clear of Tolbert apartments before you are suckered into a high priced, faulty tenancy.