From March 1st 2006, Skyline Hills will now be called Shadow Woods and they are converting the apartments to Condos. The new owners meet the residents on a very cold evening out on the tennis courts instead of in the warm rental office/club house. And yes we all could have fit in the club house. Kinda lets you know what they think about renters. The new owners are not in the rental business they are developers. They insisted residents who wanted to buy "as is" now to get pre-approved with Wells Fargo (not exactly the best/cheapest for mortgages) but finally said you can get the actually mortgage with another lender. The developer's business model is to "FLIP" the apartments as fast as possible but keep the revenue stream flowing i.e,from the new/current residents until all the condos are sold.

The new owners are still renting out the apartments but you will be living in and near a construction site. There are already huge construction site dumpsters taking up the resident's parking spaces and blocking one of the apartment's trash areas. Residents were told to expect construction on all apartment roofs and definately around the outside of the apartments. But if your apartment section is next door to the ones they are renovating then expect alot of noise during the day since the apt walls are thin. Plus there will be potential buyers/strangers viewing the condos and surrounding condos during open house hours. The owners are renovating each apartment in stages so they can only give you and estimate of when you have to move out some residents have already been given notice. They will let you know that your apt is within the stage of being converted and YOU will have to constantly "communicate" with them for the exact move out date or just come home one day to a 30 day move out notice since the 60 day notice requirment expired this year. The new owners hope to complete the conversion of the apartments within a year and half.

Problems for renters:

The rent stated does not include the extra water, trash and sewage which for us varied between $50 to $70 dollars per month. You have to pay your share in your apartment grouping which can vary widely. Each apartment DOES NOT have their own water meter so if you are on vacation/away frequently for business trips or your neighbors have lots of guests staying over YOU pay for all the water used. The trash rate also seems to vary throughout the year.
But what bugged us the most was that the rent was not equal. Some people (not section 8 or elderly) paid less for the same size and type of apartment. Oakland does not have rent control. The apartments for their age 1987/maintenance are not good value and rent is higher or equal to new apartments.

On site construction noise and construction trash such as nails on the parkings lots and dust on the cars. Dust/dirt on the cars is already a problem since there is a new condo complex being built a block away from our own. There is constant road noise from the dirt/dump trucks and lots of construction dust being deposited on the resident's cars from this site. It is really bad on windy days. Also, dust/pollen is being deposited on your car from the landscape maintence crew who constantly uses the leaf blower near the parked cars. This creates paint damage on any parked cars near the sidewalks and yellow pollen/grass is deposited on the cars.

Crime was a problem with apts/cars being broken into both day and night and residents being attacked until management restricted access with the gate. The new owners have not made clear whether the gate will be remain closed during condo viewing hours.

The apt location is in a very windy area (especially in winter/spring/late fall) that is out of the way. You have to drive at least 20 mins to get to a grocery store/gas station depending on traffic and construction. On Keller Drive one lane tends to be closed for the new Condo construction site. The neighborhood to the right of the freeway exit is a ghetto.

The apts are poorly built with very little insulation so they are cold in winter and hot in the summer. This causes the utility bill (electric/gas) to be high. The appliances are all cheap and many don't work well. Our dryer constantly made scrapping noises. Like nails across a chalkboard. The "gym" has 3 stationary bikes all in bad shape, 1 threadmill that breaks every 3 months and it seems like it takes 4 months to get it fixed. And 1 universal weight machine. No free weights. The slanted sit up bench was stolen last year! Absolutely, no upkeep will be made to your apartment once you sign the lease ... we heard that from neighbor's with very old carpeting. By the way you can hear your upstair/downstair neighbors but not too much with the neighbor next door. The toliets constantly leak/plug up and there is a water pressure problems with the showers. Showers and toliets flushing are the biggest noise makers. If you have neighbors with a leaking toilet it will flush all night long and you will not get any sleep or you will be woken up if someone comes home late and showers. The water pipes run near the bedrooms. Ants are a problem along with mold. The maintence personel tends to be slow and vary in their ablity to fix things so you have to call twice. They have had a high turn over rate for maintenance personel are always short staffed and lately there seems to be fewer and fewer. Also, the rental management never explained how the fire (which they were at fault) that took out about 4 apartments a couple years back was started. They are still in a lawsuit with the former renters who were tossed out and given no option to stay.

Mail was another problem with USPS and UPS but Fed Ex was fine. The regular mail will not be delivered until 3pm or later or not at all.
The 94605 zip code is the Eastmont postal station. There have been many complaints to to Oakland Postmaster General about employee theft and not delivering mail. Someone even got ahold of the main mail box key and stole all the mail. You often get your neighbor's mail or your mail does not arrive. UPS tends to also be late or fails to deliver or requires you to go the Oakland pickup area at the airport where half the time they can't find your package. UPS is very inconsistant sometimes they leave packages at the door, at the rental office or try the next day for just ordinary package delivery.

The rental management also requires you to have home insurance of 200K and up to cover having a satellite dish and you will be held responsible if someone slips and falls in your apt area... great since on some apartment stairs are covered in slippery moss. Since they constantly water the grass even in the rain and there always standing water (Westnile') I could see someone getting sued.

Hope the condo owners have a better time of it then the renters.

Don't be fooled by the landscape and slick management....Renters get out now.

User Responses
From: scared2rentnow	Date: 03/12/2006
THANK YOU !!!!!

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates