Call Kurtis Investigates: How Far Some Landlords Will Go To Background You

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — You apply to live somewhere; they look to see if you have good credit if you can afford the place and if you have been a good tenant.

A Sacramento single mom says a property manager went too far backgrounding her, when she applied to rent a house and had an unexpected stranger at the door.

"He said are you Freedom Moore right off the bat, "she said.

Freedom is a mom to a six year old and says the encounter made her scared for her and her daughter.

"Who the heck are you, and why are you knocking on my door," said Freedom.

It was only then she says he identified himself as the owner of S&S Properties, a housing management company where she applied to rent a house.

After the knock, Freedom opened the door "looks around, 'so I see you don't have any pets,' and I said no I don't," she said.

Freedom said the man claimed he was there to verify what she wrote on her application.

"At that point I started feeling kinda sick this isn't right." "I felt scared, I felt like invaded," said Freedom.

"I don't want anyone feeling creeped out, said Bill Shower.

Bill is the owner of S&S Properties and the one who showed up to Freedom's house that day.

Bill says he has been doing surprise inspections like this for 26 years. He says 10 to 20, percent of applicants lie on their applications. This is why he says every applicant gets a surprise visit to see if they are telling the truth about where they currently live and if they have pets.

"I think we're a good management company doing the best job we can," said Bill.

"Certainly this type of business practice could lend itself to discrimination," said Attorney Rebecca Hause-Schultz.

Rebecca is concerned about visits like these that could include looking at an applicant's race, religion, sexual orientation, if they have kids or a disability. All discriminating factors that cannot be used in qualifying someone for a rental under government code.

We asked Bill if he looks to see how someone lives when they open the door and if he would reject somebody based on a messy home. Bill said, "No."

"We don't care what color, creed, religion, we don't care about that. We want to make sure they pay the rent take care of the house…. Got legal pets, they're fine," said Bill.

We brought the case to Tom Pool at the California Bureau of Real Estate to find out if a potential landlord can just show up to someone's house like that.

"In all my years, I have never heard of a landlord actually making a physical visit to the current rental situation to look around," said tom.

He says you certainly do not have to open the door unless you agreed to it in your application.

The rental housing association of Sacramento, which represents property managers and property owners, seems to have trouble with what Bill's doing.

"Our association would not recommend this practice," said Jim Lofgren of the housing association.

But Bill stands by his business practices, when we asked if the surprise inspections will continue? Bill answered "yes." "If they have pets, we want to make sure we interview the pets. If they don't and we knock on the door and we don't see or hear any signs of a pet and it's a good application, we will approve them," said Bill.

However, the practice cost Bill a tenant, even after getting approved Freedom decided she did not want to live in a house his company managed. In addition, after we got involved Bill returned Freedom's application fee.

"Don't show up at my door unannounced, and put me in a place of fear," said Freedom.

Bill said it is getting harder to background people because former landlords are reluctant to say anything about a tenant, concerned they may get sued. Additionally some landlords will give positive reviews for bad tenants because they just want them out.