As far as the Apartments themselves, we enjoyed living in Portledge Commons. The Apartments were attractive and fairly well constructed, parking was easily accessible and readily available, maintenance was helpful and usually completed the job quickly, and our section of the complex was relatively quiet.

However, as we approached our perspective move-out date things went downhill in a big hurry. First, they would not let us switch to a month-to-month lease, insisting we sign a year lease or move out. We spoke to numerous other apartment complexes in the area, each of which said they allowed renters to switch to month-to-month leases after a year of renting. We had been at Portledge Commons two years without being more then a day late with our rent check and O Neil Property Management would not allow us to switch. Next, after we had moved out, they sent us a bill claiming we had not paid our last two rent periods. I called their office and gave them the check numbers and the dates the checks had cleared our bank. The lady I spoke to said she would call me back the next day to update me as to whether they had resolved the problem. She never called and when I called her back several days later she claimed weakly she had left me a message.

Finally, and most odious and infuriating, when we received our deposit back they gave us back a pittance claiming we had blackened a wall, not turned in our keys, and had not cleaned properly.

1) The blackened apartment wall was due to the gas fireplace that evidently was not venting well. We scrubbed the wall many times and reduced the black significantly, but some black remained. (Although not too much that it could not be painted over) They had the audacity to claim it was from candles and not their fireplace even though the ONLY wall in the apartment that was blackened was the one around the fireplace, a dead giveaway.

2) They also claimed we had not turned in our keys in time, a statement with rather dubious integrity due to the fact we had placed our keys, on time, in the same drop box we had placed the rent checks which they had also lost.

3) Finally, they claimed the apartment was not cleaned properly and when we challenged them on this fact we were told they had never received our move-in condition form, a complete cover-our-butt fabrication. Before moving into the apartment I had been a school Resident Assistant and knew the importance of the move-in form so had completed it fastidiously before we moved in our furniture and had handed it in in person, not desiring to entrust it to the drop box. Before we moved out, we cleaned the apartment until it was considerably cleaner then when we moved in since when we moved in a) the fan was disgustingly gross, overhanging with lint and dirt b) there were pieces of the previous tenets vacuum under the edges of the cabinet c) the areas under the stove and refrigerator had obviously not been cleaned and d) the vents for the AC and heat were caked in lint and dust.

Although we enjoyed our stay in the complex, we would never, ever move there again and would recommend our friends stay far away from it due to the disgusting treatment we received during our moving out period.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/05/2009
Management here: We don't offer month to month leases because it is not economically sound for us to have leases expire during times of the year that are harder to rerent. This is the thing that made this resident upset with us and everything we did after that seemed to irritated him even more. We listen to people and work with them if there is a problem. Some things you can't fix.

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