I currently stay at Camden Bay & my lease is coming up in October. Before I get into all the details of my experience here I will start with saying that I have no intention on staying at this property. Not because its not a nice, pretty place to be, but because its so expensive. The rent alone is resonable, but the complex adds all these additional cost that in the end you pay much more than what you thought you would.

The water bill is an example of this. Aparently after reading reviews online for other Camden properties this is an issue with all of them. My water bill here ranges from $45-51. Its outrageous and there is no way out of it. I used to live in a 4 bedroom house with 2 adults and 2 small children and we all showered at least once per day, watered the yard, washed cars and did a crazy amount of laundry (always have that with 2small boys) and the highest our water ever got was $62. So how now am I by myself in a one bedroom apartment ringing up a water bil of $50' Im not, thats just what Camden Bay wants to charge me based off the sq footage of my apartment. And this "bill" doesnt come from the city like it should, it comes directly from Camden Bay. No one knows how much water I actually consume, all I know is in other aparments when I was billed for my own consumption the most I paid was $20, and that was only 2 years ago, before I moved her actually. Thats a difference of $30, thats almost a tank of gas :(

Whats even more crazy than that is now they are making all tenats that renew their lease get a cable package. Its now part of the new lease agreements!!! How is that possibly leagal either' Its $37 and some change extra each month. How can you even do that' How can you MAKE someone get cable' Its like they have to have some kind of agreement with the cable company and they have to be making a profit off this somehow.

Basically the way they break it down here is that on top of whatever your rent is you have to pay the $37 for the cable, $50 for water, $30 for trash pick up and if you want a washer & dryer thats anoter $40. So my rent for my 650 sq ft apt went from $679/mnth to $836/mnth! Thats an extra $157!!!

lol its f'in crazy here how they try to nickel and dime you for every little thing extra. Most places in Tampa include the water in the rent or they charge you a flat fee for water/sewage/trash that never changes, and on top of that some include a washer and dryer already. I know the washer and dryer here is an optional addition to your monthly cost, but the cable''' COME ON!!! I already pay good money to live here and I dont have cable for a reason, becasue I dont watch it! I work full time & go to school full time, I dont have any spare time to sit in front of the tv for hours, if I did then I would already have my own cable package. This cable package thing irritates me much more than the water bill because I obviously need water, so since I have to pay so much for it I use it like crazy, but the cable is not a neccesity, its a luxury & I dont feel I should have to be FORCED to pay for it.

My lease is up in October & I was going to renew it, or transfer to another apartment here, was even willing to pay more per month for a bigger one, but then after talking with the office today and I found out that I have to get the cable package with my new lease it all left a bad taste in my mouth. Not to mention that if I did stay here and transfered to another apartment I would have to pay a new $400 pet fee, I just paid $300 14 months ago when I signed my previous lease... This place really does try to get money from you from every angle.

Other than the politics of Camden Bay I do like it here. Its usually really quiet at night. Every once in a while you get a loud neighbor but they are really quick to evict those people. Ive had 3 neighbors live across the hall in the 14 months Ive been here, and thats with at least a month break in between them all. The Camden crew work hard to keep the outside clean, but a lot of the residents that live here are just messy! For instance someone had eaten fast food and put all the trash under their car so there were bags and napkins and empty cups just sitting on the ground, thats just lazy, and even though you pay a lot to stay here they should have enough respect for the other residents to pick up after theirselves because we have to look at that trash untill someone that works her does pick it up.

There are alot of reviews on here that refer to Camden Bay as being "ghetto" LMFAO that is just the stupidist thing that I have ever heard. Of all the things this property is GHETTO is not one of them. I dont know why anyone that lives here would use that term to describe it. The only people that I knew that did live here that would describe it as such are those people that treated it like the ghetto and got evicted. Those people that left their beer bottles on the stairs or tossed them in the grass. Those people that have huge dogs that take poops as big as a grown man and leave them in the grass infront of the apartment buildings. Those people that put their trash outside their door at 10pm Friday night when they know the trash will not come untill that following Sunday night and the loose animals get into it and they dont have the common courtesy to pick it up because they dont feel they should have to.

Ive had more problems with the residents here than the staff. Each staff individually is nice, but if you want anything done, AND I MEAN ANYTHING, then you need to physically go into the office and request it. NEVER CALL THEM! lol, and I say this because you can call 10 times about an issue, no matter what it is, and it will not get resolved, but the first time you go into the office they will handle it usually that same day. I dont know if when they answer the phones they just dont write down what you say or what happens there but it will fall on deaf ears.

Proof of that is when the 2nd tennats across the hall used to leave their trash outside all the time. One time they put it out on a Thursday night, as I mentioned above, and dogs got into it. The next morning I called the office to have someone clean it up. It was scattered all through the hallway, I litterally had to walk over trash to get inside. I think they had 2 full bags of trash out there. When I got home that night it was still there. I kicked it away from my door and in somewhat of a makeshift pile, the next morning it was all over again, more animals had gotten into it, and this time they pulled more trash out of the bags. I called again, now it was Saturday, they appologized and said they would send someone out. Again, no one came. Office wasnt open on Sunday but I did call first thing Monday morning on my way to work, "Oh we will take care of that, Sorry we didnt earlier" they said, and they had no record of me calling about it previously. Monday evening, it was still there, lol. By this time I was furious. Finally, 5 days later, on the 6th phone call I made to them Tuesday morning they came to clean it up. This was only after a 10 minute conversation about how many times Ive called and how long it has been out there.

That was the worst of the trash situations and now if you do something like this they will impose a $25 fine on you for every sitation. These residents across the hall were evicted. I have seen alot of evictions since I have been here but all of them were just in my opinion. I dont know if Camden imposes so many rules because they want a nice community or because they want that extra cash, lol, Im sure its the both, but mainly the latter. You have to pay $30 a month in your rent for the trash collection. Which is the service that comes to your door and picks up the trash. But they do not pick up loose trash, lol, and you are only allowed whatever you can fit in that one plastic trash can they provide. Also, they only come between the hours of 6-8 pm Sunday - Thursday. I think for the amount you pay that they should pick up loose trash in the hall AND they should allow you more than one bag, since thats all you can fit into the can. Or the least they can do is extend the hours and days that they pick the trash up.

As far as maintence goes, thats like a shot in the dark really. My dishwasher has never worked quite right, but I ignore it because I never really wanted to use it anyways. However my refrigerator never made ice, which I also ignored cause I just use the trays, but my frig also freezer burns all my freezer foods and also freezes all the liquids and foods in the fridge, and this is on leve 4, if you put it to level 3 then everything in the freezer melts or is half frozen half squishy and the food in the fridge isnt crisp cold and spoils quicker. I called about this 4 times before someone came to adjust the thermostat. It works better now but still is not fail safe. I lost alot of food to that fridge. Have you ever gone to scramble an egg and when you crack it its like hitting a rock' lol, frozen eggs look funny. The other maintence issue was the toilet. Its been fixed twice now and it still runs unless you jiggle the handle lol, so Ive just been jiggleing it, aparently they have fixed it the best its gonna get and I just deal with it as opposed to waiting for them to come out again.

The front gate hardly ever works. Which doesnt matter anyways, because when it does work, half the residents have lost their card keys, so they follow someone else in. Its quite funny when you pull up and there are 6 cars waiting on the side for someone to let them in. Half the residents complain about the gate being open and not being secure (thats me) and then the other half complain because they have to wait to get in (they dont want to pay the $35 for a new card). I think that if you have a gate it should be pin code activated and only allow one car in at a time. If your car gets smashed, so be it, just post a sign saying so. Whenever cars follow me in I feel bad, how do I know that they are an actual resident and not a stalker of one of the residents' For as good as the gate security system is they might as well just get rid of it all together.

In short, if you dont mind paying an arm and a leg in required extra fees & only getting your request meet after asking for them at least 6 times then this will be a great place for you to stay. The properties are very beautiful most of the times. They try to keep it as well kept and clean as possible, but like I said before Im sure its hard to keep up after so many people that are careless with their waste. Honestly if it was not for the mandatory fees (water so high, cable (wtf') & waste pickup) then I would definately stay here. Even though I feel like I have to hound them to fix stuff I would still stay here because for the most part the office staff is nice and this place can be great. My biggest issues are the extra fees.

I know Ive written alot but I hope that this was a more clear review of this property. Most of the reviews about Camden Bay seem to be written by ex-residents that left on bad terms and were angry and wanted to complain about every little thing. If Camden wasnt forceing my hand at the cable and water bills then I would still be here this time next year.

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