| Parking: |   | | Grounds: | | | Safety: | | | Construction: | | | Cleanliness: | | | Noise: | | | Maintenance: | | | Office Staff: | |
move-in: 6/07 - current
We moved here, thinking it'd be a great area. We were attracted by "new renovations" like granite kitchens counters, marble vanity counters, crown molding, and a big kitchen.
HAH! The "renovated" apartment was dirtier than anything that should've been allowed to be shown:
Floors were covered in sawdust and drywall dust; Excess varnish on the cabinets; Cheap caulking for the kitchen sink; Small chips in the granite (which the apartment manager claimed she couldn't see); No linen closet but rather a second coat closet; Every room with a water connection had a leak (master bathroom toilet leaked, which sat that way for a week until the downstairs neighbors finally complained after it started leaking into their unit); Screws and nails everywhere; No weather stripping on the front door; Paint on the windows, with one of the kitchen windows being jammed shut; Fire hazard in the furnace closet due to debris and whatnot being present; "Stainless Steel" appliances that are actually aluminum, with a dishwasher that broke upon first use.
New phone/cable jacks were installed ... but NONE OF THEM WERE CONNECTED, thanks to the renovators they paid so little for! We paid BellSouth and Charter cable out of our own pockets, then were told by the corporate office that they would not reimburse because we didn't put in a work order for them or list them on the move-in checklist. When we did tell the leasing consultant about them, SHE LISTED 'OKAY' ON THE CHECKLIST! (She was also very rude when we questioned her why she wasn't writing anything down when the apartment clearly wasn't ready, saying very matter-of-factly, "It *is* ready.") We didn't list them on a maintenance work order because we had no idea we could (it's not electrical or plumbing-related). Not to mention, the only cable input to the living room had to be fed from the DINING ROOM. Eventually, we went into the wall itself and rewired it for them.
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The exterior was going through "renovations" as well, if you could call them that. The old iron bridges were taken down, and newer wooden ones being built at an alarmingly slow rate. The exterior renovation team is inept and lazy, not working at all if the weather has a chance of rain, and when they do work it's only from 12PM until 4PM. The rest of the time is spent sitting around and slacking off. It took them two weeks longer than projected just to finish the front bridge to our unit, and our movers were forced to take this rickety, half-thought wooden walkway from the adjacent building to the back of our building - then up 3 flights of stairs - just to deliver our furniture. A major inconvenience with grocery shopping and final moving of the odds n' ends.
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Our back porch is absolutely ghetto! The exterior wall covering the chimney stack is off kilter, because they tried knocking it down. They rebuilt it, but rather shoddily. Our back entryway door has a 1/4" gap at one corner at the top, allowing whatever creepy-crawlies another access point. On top of the unpainted porch railing, there was a puddle of dried feces that had been there for so long that the smell had almost dissipated! (The property manager also tried blaming it on a dog)
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While the maintenance staff is top-notch, knowledgeable, and friendly to a fault, it takes them a little longer than expected to fulfill work orders, since they have to go behind the interior renovators and clean up their messes for them. Normally, however, after they perform whatever task they came to do, they will ask if there is anything else that they need to look at, in case it slipped your mind. They get a thumbs-up in my book, unlike the management team.
The property manager (current as of the date being written) is rude, and does not like to be confronted with something she knows is the property's responsibility. It takes something drastic to pull her out of her office(normally her seeing for herself what exactly has to be done, as she will not believe a tenant at face value).
The leasing consultant that showed us around and handled our lease signing is uncaring, speaks in an uninterested monotone, and tries to crack jokes at inopportune times - Example: We lacked a linen closet and when we showed her, she suggested we go out and purchase hanging organizers for our linen. This was meant as a joke (apparently), but her monotone made it sound serious. It was a week and a half after move-in that we finally got our linen closet (and no, we did not buy those organizers).
Bottom line:
This place is overpriced, poorly laid out, and badly run. They try extra hard to make it inviting, but their attitudes eventually come to the surface. Good luck getting them to approve any form of reimbursement, and if you move into a unit that has the exterior currently being redone, be prepared to be unable to leave very often. |
