I lived in a Portofino property for 7 months, and it was a living hell.


Everything looks nice, but the construction is unbelievably poor. The walls are all paper-thin, you can hear everything your roommates say or do, you can hear your neighbors and they can hear you, and you can absolutely hear the train going by at all hours of the night since you are right next to the rail road tracks.


The insulation is horrible, expect to be cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and to pay huge amounts in heating and cooling costs on your electric bill. Water pressure is low and you can't get any hot water in the early hours of the day when everyone else is showering. There are constant maintenance problems with fixtures breaking, and the maintenance people take days to respond sometimes; and they don't respond to you leaving messages, you have to keep calling until you talk to a real person, which is a hassle if you work a 9-5 job.


The elevators were broken down more often than they were working, so if you don't live on the first floor, expect to take the stairs a lot.


There aren't enough washers and dryers on each floor, and those break down too, so you'll be taking your laundry up and down the stairs until you find an unoccupied and working washer and dryer. The laundry machines use a card system, which is good because you don't have to get quarters; or it would be, if the only card reader you can use to put money on the laundry card wasn't located at the other end of the property. Oh, and that thing broke sometimes too, so you couldn't do your laundry until they fixed it.


The absolute worst was when you try to move out. They will not give you back your security deposit. I had 5 friends who lived there around the same time I did, and none of them got their deposit back, no matter how clean they left the place.


Trammell Crow, the company that manages Portofino, actually recently settled a multi-million dollar class action lawsuit for fraud as a result of their practices in not returning people's security deposits and charging them fraudulent and excessive fees. They will steal your money. I myself am currently engaged in litigation with them, 3 years later, over this very issue. Don't believe me' Do a Google search for Trammell Crow Class Action, you should find it quickly.


Don't let these criminals steal your money! Don't let them over-charge you for a nice looking but poorly made rental property! They're crooks and that's all there is to it.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/19/2007
I cannot agree with you more. My credit is stained big time due to their disgusting business practices. I wanted to file a class action suit but I don't know how to go about it. Please email me at pinkgun99@hotmail.com...These thieves need to be exposed and their company closed for good. I have police records from the time my apt. got burglarized and testimonials from the company they hired to replace the demolished front door, stating that it was the 5th apt. that week that had gotten broken into.

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