Trash strewn across a parking lot and piled 12 feet high.

Rats living beneath discarded bedding in basement storage.

Mushrooms growing out of hardwood floors because of an uncontrolled moisture issue.

Those are a just a few of the dozens of problems reported in apartment buildings owned by Jason Cohen throughout Allegheny County in recent years.

They don't include the fire hazards and structural defects that prompted one local district judge late last month to fine Mr. Cohen $200,000. Or the safety issues that forced city building inspectors to shutter one Oakland property. Or the 101 service requests received by the Allegheny County Health Department related to at least 18 of Mr. Cohen's properties.

Mr. Cohen, whose company has operated under at least four different names -- JLB Property Group, JLB Investment Properties, Elrod Investments and most recently, Trends Capital -- has bought up more than 30 parcels since December 2003, spending at least $8.5 million.

The apartments range from $400 a month for a studio in a basement in Dormont to $1,900 a month for a three-bedroom duplex in Shadyside.

But tenants at many of these properties complain that maintenance requests are rarely addressed, that their apartments are unsafe and that Mr. Cohen fails to meet the standards he's promised them.

Despite repeated requests for an interview, Mr. Cohen, 27, refused to comment for this story. He referred questions to his attorney, Dick Kelly Jr. But on Thursday, Mr. Kelly said he was unsure he would continue to represent Mr. Cohen, and so he, too, refused comment.

Katherine King, who grew up in Murrysville, moved back to Pittsburgh from Washington, D.C., in July 2004.

Accustomed to high rents there, she found an apartment for a relatively inexpensive $695 per month at 301 S. Negley Ave. in Friendship.

Her one-bedroom apartment was on the first floor of an old Victorian home that had been divided into six units

When she first moved in, the house was owned by Ed Levanas. The apartment was in good condition, with new floors and fresh paint, said Ms. King, 31.

But Mr. Cohen's JLB Investment Properties bought it and 14 other properties from Mr. Levanas on Feb. 4, 2005. He paid $164,500 for the building.

"Pretty much after that, it all went downhill," she said. "This is his investment. You'd think he'd just care more about the property itself -- not even the tenants."

Though JLB promised 24-hour maintenance, Ms. King's experience was that requests were mostly ignored.

She cites a weeks-long wait for maintenance workers to respond to mushrooms that were growing in her floor boards.

There were two wall air-conditioning units in her apartment. When she used them one summer, the moisture prompted the fungi, she said.

"To me, that's a problem."

Other issues during her time there, she continued, included trash piling up outside; heat that wasn't turned on until the end of October; and a lack of fire extinguishers and marked fire exits.

When she finally moved out in June 2007, Ms. King said, she received only half of her security deposit, because, the company claimed, there was hair inside the bathroom vanity and the apartment blinds were dirty.

"He's notorious for not giving back security deposits," she said.

That's borne out by a number of lawsuits filed against Mr. Cohen and his companies in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas.

They are named as defendants in 20 separate cases filed with the prothonotary. The filings include former tenants who want their security deposits back, as well as companies that have not been paid for their services.

"I found them to be a Mickey Mouse operation," Ms. King said.

Having to constantly battle the landlord, she continued, was difficult.

"It was very stressful, especially when you're dealing with someone as adversarial as he was."

She had screaming battles with Mr. Cohen, she said, and he swore at her on the phone.

"You're completely powerless," she said. "I don't think I ever received a return phone call when I lived there."

Ford Fuller began working with Mr. Cohen's company doing maintenance in January. He lasted only until the end of March.

That's because much of the work he was asked to do -- which ranged from patching holes to dealing with leaking sewage to setting rat traps -- was just too disgusting.

"All the buildings are falling apart," he said.

Despite the number of properties owned by Mr. Cohen -- and that they are spread out across the city and South Hills -- he employed only three people to do maintenance, Mr. Fuller said.

The motto for the crew, he continued, was "fast and dirty."

"They did quick jobs on everything just so they could go to the next one," said Mr. Fuller, 23.

He cited the collapse of a bedroom ceiling in an apartment at 101 Mount Lebanon Blvd.

"The whole ceiling fell in. It could have killed [the resident] if she were in bed," he said, noting large chunks of plaster that fell.

It took the crew three weeks to put her ceiling back, Mr. Fuller said, and "her bedroom looked like the middle of a construction project even after we left.

"He buys these problem buildings and has no money to put into them," Mr. Fuller said. "I think it's pretty reckless."

Instead of worrying about structural issues, Mr. Cohen directs the maintenance men to keep up appearances on the outside of the properties, he said.

In fact, the front of his building on Mervin Avenue, Dormont, is neatly landscaped with new mulch and shrubs. The same goes for his property at 666 Florida Ave. in Mt. Lebanon.

But anyone walking behind that building recently would have seen trash -- which started out in individual cans -- piled up against the back of the building at least 12 feet high.

Marissa Scott and her fiance, Marcus Blackwell, who live in a JLB Investments apartment at 1401 Mervin Ave., have had a lot of problems.

Their stove was red-tagged by the gas company, though a maintenance worker later went in and removed the tag, saying there was nothing wrong.

Sewage backs up into their sinks, and Mr. Blackwell pointed out small chunks left behind in what once was a white porcelain sink in the kitchen.

And at one point, there was no hot water for three days.

When Ms. Scott called the company's maintenance number, she was told: "Well, you're not elderly so there's nothing we can do about it."

The rear exit door of the building can't be opened and there's a hole in the hallway through which the basement is exposed.

In their bathroom, Ms. Scott said, parts of the plaster walls have crumbled down, and the holes around the bathtub and shower are now covered by pieces of vinyl sheeting. The maintenance worker -- Mr. Fuller -- said he was told to put the vinyl over anything that looked moldy.

Also, a water heater in the basement has been leaking for months. A maintenance worker for the company recently painted the walls and floor, and the blue paint extends right up to the wet spot, but not over it.

The couple's lease is up in August -- about the same time they are to marry.

They are already looking for a new apartment.

"We decided we'll pay whatever they want to break our lease, and they can keep our security deposit," said Mr. Blackwell. "We don't even want it back. We just don't want to be here anymore."

In mid-May, a shut-off notice was posted on the front door of their building from Columbia Gas. It noted that there was an outstanding bill for the seven apartments there, totaling $2,127.67. If not paid, gas would be turned off on June 30.

In fact, over a two-day period in May, at least four of Mr. Cohen's properties received utility shut-off notices.

At his building on Florida Avenue, the shut-off notice showed $610.66 owed to Equitable Gas.

Pat Kelly, the Dormont building inspector, has received 43 complaints about three of Mr. Cohen's properties in the borough in the last few years. Most of the time, the calls are for excessive garbage on the property, falling plaster or failure to remove snow.

All of them, he said, have been taken care of, noting that Mr. Cohen and his maintenance workers are typically cooperative.

"If there are complaints about him, we usually get on it right away because of his history," he said. "We get more complaints for him than anybody else."

David Zazac, with the Allegheny County Health Department, said it's difficult to put perspective on the number of complaints for Mr. Cohen's buildings.

"It's a significant number, but Mr. Cohen does own a lot of properties," Mr. Zazac said. "To say it's an inordinate amount wouldn't be an accurate picture."

One of the things that must be taken into consideration, he said, is the age of the properties in question.

In South Oakland, where Mr. Cohen has received the highest number of complaints, the buildings are much older, which means more problems, Mr. Zazac said.

"It's not out of the realm of possibility that you'd have this many."

He would not go so far as to rank Mr. Cohen with any other large-scale landlords.

Local apartment review Web sites, though, are filled with negative reviews about Trends Capital.

Former tenants complain about everything from bad service to not having heat to faulty appliances.

They urge prospective renters to avoid the company.

Marcia Cashdollar, the immediate past president of the Western Pennsylvania Apartment Association, said that property owners like Mr. Cohen -- who have accrued dozens of complaints with the Allegheny County Health Department -- "give landlords a bad name.

"Some kid is playing grown-up, and he's ruining renters for the rest of us," she said. "To me, if he's acquired all of this in five years, and he's 27 years old, he's bitten off a lot more than he can chew."