i wrote a review of archstone marina terrace six or so months ago and had good things to say. i was optimistic of what the new management would do, and patient with them to prove themselves. they had already replaced a malignant security outfit and i was high on that fact. however, i have come 360 degrees to sheer and utter disapproval and contempt for this complex. you can save yourself some time and let me sum up that the new management of this place since denver's archstone-smith bought it out has been an unmidigated disaster. the long-time tenants, such as myself, are leaving in droves because it has become a very expensive slum with the worst on-site management of any place i have lived or visited. if you would like to read my insight for specifics, enjoy, just DO NOT SIGN A LEASE HERE:

- the pools are small and nasty. i've seen people screwing in the hot tubs and literally have seen ejaculation floating around after. told management. they didn't even freaking empty it. very unsanitary. would NEVER swim there.

- the maintenence people are nice, but they are shackled with poor materials and their bosses in management are idiots. the steam room and bathrooms in the gym were to be upgraded and were supposed to be finished in early january. it is march and they are still taped off. work orders are responded to in a timely way, but the maintenence of the complex itself is atrocious. it is a glass house. it looks good from the outside, but like a beautiful aids infected heroin addict hooker, the closer you look, the sicker you find out she is. no condom will save you from archstone.

- the dog walk alley between buildings was once beautiful. bamboo trees and bushes. they have since torn EVERYTHING out. it is now a dog crap and dirt puddle of mud. and, they are not doing anything with it. it smells horribly like urine, and the hallways on the first floor of both buildings smell equally. people do not clean up their dog crap and management does nothing about it. the poop mud from it is all over the stairway and hallway. shameful.

- the parking is supposed to be secure, but it is a ruse. the gates are often broken and there are often auto break in's.

- the security is nice. the NEW security. the old security company was obtrusive and was caught peeping through female tenants windows and overstepping their authority. i do appreciate the professionalism of the new company, however, they are just for show. for example, at night, they may request that strangers whom they must let in the doors, sign in. but they do not check identification, and allow ANYONE to go into the halls of the complex. this is not their fault. it is the policy of the management. read about those keystone idiots below . . .

- ok, the management. deep breath . . . HORRIBLE. pathetic. the heavyset female manager of this complex should be fired. plain and simple. she has no business being the manager of her own apartment, let alone a complex. she is rarely around, she makes horrible decisions, and does not resolve problems at all. in fact, she creates them. archstone smith needs to replace her. shame on them for letting her be there through the mass of complaints they get from tenants here. all of the things i write about here are things that are constantly brought to this woman's attention, and are constantly ignored. this place needs a tenants' association more than wal mart needs a union.

- have been late paying my rent by one day ONCE. by one day. was in DC on business and came home to a notice to pay in three days or quit posted INFORMATION SIDE OUT on my door. i was one day late and they made me seem like a squatter in my own building to my neighbors. not to mention that it had personally identifiable information on it. they have no respect for tenants. none. i have lived here through two leases. i am sick that it has become as bad as it has since i have been here.

- the painting job took entirely too long, as if it was not a priority. they hired illegals to do it and only painted the parts viewable from the streets. the parts that we had to live with remained half painted, with equipment and trash strewn about.

- i also know an agent at another archstone complex. she told me that the ones here jack up the rent for existing tenants to get them to move out, because they only make commissions on new tenants or the difference in rent price from old lease to new. sick and shameful.

- a gigantic new condo plex was built at maxella, and another one is getting ready to be built right across the street. there are complexes going up all over the place and the traffic on lincoln is already as bad as the 405 in rush hour. throw in the fact that coming from the north, you have to make a u-turn at fiji in order to pull into the complex, and it spells migrane every time you come home. the median on lincoln was built to prohibit street access to the complex.

- now for some history. this area used to be quaint. a lot of entertainment industry people lived around the way: the meat and potato people behind the cameras, not the stars. there were coffee shops that you would meet some of the most interesting people in LA at. when this complex was proposed five years ago, it was fought against hand and foot by the locals. big money eventually won out, but things are not ok. the people living in the condos behind archstone despise our very existance. i tell people i live on a boat in the marina so not to be looked upon with mistrust, or worse, disgust. we are barred from driving through their neighborhoods with a big, ugly, caste-building barrier. back to how it used to be quaint . . . all of the old places that locals used to go were torn down and replaced with chain stores. it is a very run of the mill starbucks kind of area with no personality and is very street crowded. NO COMMUNITY WHATSOEVER. it's really not that nice of an area anymore.

i could go on all day. summed up: this is a complex that if i had it to do all over again, i would never have moved moved into in the first place. i am moving out in two months and taking a break from LA over the summer with a move to SF just to wash the residue that living here has left in my soul. i'm still working in LA, but will be doing most of it from the --- bay and driving back and staying at hotels for four days every other week in order to do it. this place is that bad. it makes you distrust authority for ignoring and abandoning you and that's unhealthy. i feel like somehow warning every prospective victim that is walking into a very well-rehearsed con dance by these trained agents of deception. this will have to do. after this experience, i would not rent from ANY of archstone's many properties.

User Responses
From: PROFHATY99	Date: 08/03/2006
!!!! WHY DIDNT I READ THIS BEFORE I MOVED IN??!!! EVERYTHING THIS SAYS IS ABSOLUTELY TRUE TRUE TRUE!!! :(

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