If your landlord is connected to a management company, as with my apartment house, then you have every reason to distrust them. To call management companies Nazis would be putting Nazis in a bad light.
As with your experience, things have changed here for the worse. They try to stick you with the bill for repairs, and those repairs are of an inferior quality. They constantly have inspections of our apartments, allegedly looking to make repairs, but in fact to nickel and dime tenants for house keeping issues. But the straw that broke the camel's back came when the manager had threatened our cat, Lovecraft. We had been told in the past that a single pet deposit of four hundred dollars would cover any animals we would have on the premises. Since then, they told us they wanted an extra four hundred. Well, as my daughter is autistic, we got a doctor's note making the cat a companion animal, which would nullify the pet deposit. This was not only denied, but we were told to "get rid of the cat." The reasoning had been, as we had had a cat that we had had to get rid of named Kafka which had done some damage to the carpet and the blinds, they now claim they think (so they claim) Lovecraft is the one who had actually done the damage
. Well, that would have broken my little girl's heart. Did they seriously believe my wife and I were going to choose this place over our daughter?
We have since found a place we that is more of a smaller operation, who choose their tenants on a personal basis. So far, the feedback we've gotten sounds good. On top of that, there are families with kids living there, which is a plus for our daughter, as well as a pool and a play set. And to answer your question: yes, I think we can trust this new place.
As you hadn't signed the lease, does that mean you are free to leave whenever you like?
Good luck with your situation.
I should have made clear, this response was for you.