Archstone La Jolla Colony
  (formerly Oakwood La Jolla Colony)

Perfect example of corporate greed! From: -Anonymous- Date posted: 2/21/2006 Years at this apartment: 2004 - 2006   I cannot recommend this place. The new owners are far too greedy and they seem to get money a number of ways. First the good points: Well taken care of landscaping. The maintenance man, Tony, is real nice and very willing to help. He is the only human there now. Ample parking but you will have to use the garage. Surface parking is tight. I found it quiet. I only heard noise a few times. There was a lot more noise from the garbage trucks in the morning than from residents. Now the bad: As soon as Archstone took over the price of things started to rise. I already paid a $300 pet deposit as well as my normal deposit of $300 and a garage door opener deposit of $30. They immediately instituted a monthly pet fee of $35-$50 a month in addition to rent and the pet deposit. Their rent went way up right away. Mine would have risen almost $300 if I had not moved out. With the pet fee they wanted $1680 a month for a cramped 1 bedroom apartment with no other ammenities. They are trying to push out all people except yearly leases. Their appliances are the cheapest they could buy. The dishwasher, for example, couldn't even do a decent job. They started billing garbage, water and sewar through their own company, and of course, the price of that rose as well. Now with their own company you also pay a monthly "handling fee" on the bill. Also, the utilities are pro-rated. If someone uses much more water than you do you get charged the rate for the complex not what you use. They are out to get you with your deposit when you move out. You could clean your end off and if they found anything they didn't like they were still going to charge you the whole $90. Luckily the maintenance man didn't think that was fair. He actually worked for the complex before Archstone took over and recognized the work I did in cleaning. They were going to charge us $50 for cleaning the carpets if they didn't see a receipt from a ***steam cleaning company*** to prove that we steam-cleaned it. Shampooing the carpet wasn't enough. They finally relented on that. They were going to charge $65 for touchup painting with no allowance for wear and tear. Fortunately the maintenance man helped us because we came in before Archstone took over. I pity the poor souls who are moving in under Archstone and I am glad I am out.

Recommended: NO Overall Rating

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