In summation, this was the worst place I've ever lived. Period. The staff here are the most deceitful I 've ever met. Period. This is really all anyone needs to know, but if you'd like the exact details of my living experience, feel free to keep reading.

I'll begin with the apartment itself. My girlfriend and I lived here for one year. The 'Avalon at Fairway Hills' apartments are described on the company website as "the ultimate in luxury rental living in Columbia, Maryland". The first thing you should know is this: THESE APARTMENTS ARE NOT LUXURY APARTMENTS BY ANY STRECTCH OF THE IMAGINATION. At barely 1000 square feet, this was the smallest 2 bedroom/2 bath apartment I've ever seen. Also, the apartments are nearly 20 years old, but the office staff informed us that we lucked out because we were getting a "newly renovated" unit. I'm not sure what Avalon thinks the phrase "newly renovated" means, but the following is a list of problems we encountered within the first 30 days of staying in this "newly renovated" unit: 1) the back door lock did not work, 2) the washing machine was completely filled with brown water the day we moved in, 3) the closet door in the bedroom was broken, 4) the shelves in the hallway closet broke (twice), 5) the garbage disposal broke 6) a tile on the kitchen floor came up, 7) at least 1 out of every 3 electrical outlets did not work, and the biggest problem of them all 8) the apartment was infested with hundreds of ants from the day we moved in until the day we moved out. Again, aside from the ants, this is only a list of things that went wrong within the first 30 days. Other problems over the course of the year included: 1) the dishwasher breaking, 2) mold developing in all hallway closets (probably growing for years), 3) the air conditioning going out during the first week of summer, 4) the heat going out during the first week of winter, and 5) for some reason, the light on the back porch only worked for a week. Whenever we'd put a new bulb in, it would burn out within a week. After about six weeks, we just stopped replacing the light.

I'm not sure there is anything more I can say to dissuade you from moving into this dump, except that I haven't even gotten to the staff yet. Deceitful and shameless are what they are. The staff takes you on a tour of their model apartments which do, in fact, look very luxurious - this is because no one ever lives in them, they are the models. The photos on the website are all of the model apartments. The apartments actual human beings occupy do not look a thing like these. So after I see these beautiful model apartments, just imagine how surprised I was when I moved into my unit and dealt with problem after problem after problem. To say the least, we felt betrayed and ripped off. Although they were able to address most of the problems we were having, they were never able to get rid of the ants. The office contracted terminex to come out and take care of the problem. The terminex guy came once a week for a good 3 months, but to no avail. We had to throw away food on multiple occasions, and after about the third month, only kept canned goods in the house. The only thing Avalon offered to compensate us for our troubles was to take $100 off the rent one month. One hundred dollars is less than 1/13 of the rent. I had to fight to get more, but could only get them to take $300 off my August rent. This barely covered the price of the food we had to throw away.

And believe me, there are plenty of other reasons that make this place unbearable. Another thing that bothered me was the parking lot: there are simply not enough spaces. On many nights, I had to park 2 or 3 buildings over. This is the last thing I want to do after a ten hour work day. Even something as simple as paying the rent was a task. You can't just walk over to the office and drop off your payment. You have to mail it off to some office in Virginia Beach, and on two separate occasions, the check got there late despite sending it off a week in advance. And both of these times I had to fight to get a late fee taken off. It does not take more than 3 days for mail to get from MD to VA, so I don't know how to explain this one. I honestly felt like they were trying to piss me off sometimes! And on a few occasions, the check wouldn't go through my bank account until the middle of the month. Where is the common courtesy here'

Getting back to the actual apartment again, there were so many things that just seemed structurally wrong with the place. The walls were paper thin, and I could hear the people above and beside me at all times. The ceilings are super low, so the place just looked smaller than it really is, and may explain why we heard the people upstairs so easily. And, for some reason, there are hardly any fixtures in the whole place. The kitchen and the bathrooms had lights....that's it. I don't have many lamps because every apartment I've ever lived in had its own fixtures. So I had to buy a bunch of lamps to get the place lit up. And what is the deal with the insulation' The average electric bill during the summer and winter months was around $300.00.

The amenities are advertised as an added bonus, but again, I was disappointed. The community pool was nice, but I got kicked out one day because I brought a raft in the pool. The lifeguard on duty told me that my flotation device was a risk to other people in the pool. Go ahead, try to figure that logic out on your own. Also, I realized later on, that the picture of the pool on the Avalon website is certainly not the one in my neighborhood. So I guess they just took a photo of someone else's pool and put it on their webpage' The gym pass that you have to pay for sounds like a cool idea, but once you take into account that both of the communities, 'Avalon Woods' and 'Avalon Meadows' have rights to use it, things change a little. These communities have hundreds of units. The gym has nice stuff, don't get me wrong, but simply not enough equipment to accommodate two communities worth of people.

And the final shot to the face was the deposit. Avalon did not return one single penny to us. I have lived in a lot of different places over the years, and have never been denied my deposit upon moving out. They stated that the walls and carpets needed to be cleaned, and a tile in the kitchen had to be replaced. The tile was loose the day I moved in, and the floors and walls were left in the same condition as we got them. We actually spent a whole day cleaning the place before we finally returned the keys. General wear and tear over years of people living there can explain the walls and floors, not me. Cleaning the carpet and walls should take place after ANYONE moves out; it should never get taken off someone's deposit unless there are burn marks or holes in the place, which there certainly were not. Besides, we made it a point to be out of the apartment as much as possible, so we had less opportunity to damage anything in the place.

Just before we handed in our "intent to leave" notice, we received a letter stating that, if we did decide to renew our lease, the rent was going to increase by $100 a month. To say I was at a loss for words to see this would be an understatement. Hopefully this letter conveys a message I wish I got before I decided to sign the lease: just say no.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/03/2009
Can't express how similar my experience was with these scammers. Never will even suggest anyone to rent there. They have a swimming pool at the rental office. When you rent in summer, they make sure you see that. Young guys seeing a few blondes in bikinis may get expectations high. But, all ends right there. :) Very bad community in an absolutely great town.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/04/2009
Same thing happened to me and more! HOW MUCH LONGER WILL HOWARD COUNTY PERMIT THIS ABUSE TO CONTINUE?
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/04/2009
I couldn't agree more. I lived here for 2 years and only stayed that long because of location. If you want to live in peace and quiet, DON'T move here. You can hear everything between walls and even when people are in the hallway. It doesn't help either when you have rude neighbors that want to stand in the hallway yelling for their pet instead of following the rules and walking their animal on a leash. Also, I have never heard of an apartment complex making you responsible for cleaning carpets and painting walls when you move out. This is ridiculous in so many ways. Also, the fee they make you pay when you first move in for the amenities is crazy. I NEVER used the pool or gym the 2 years I lived there. The only thing Avalon has that is positive, is location. But I recommend you search for another neighborhood if you want to stay in Columbia. Overall, the price you pay for Avalon is not worth it.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/05/2009
The same thing happened to us! We rented a unit there for 2 years and upon leaving, we received absolutely no deposit back -- I cannot believe they essentially "charge" to clean carpets/fresh paint. As for location, towards the end of the vist, it felt very unsafe to us...one day, I came home from lunch and there were a dozen police cars in our neighborhood hunting down a guy who had run into the place from Columbia Road. Right up the road is a complex where there is consistently a lot of criminal activity. My husband also has he car broken into (granted, he left the suction cup to his GPS on the windshield so they knew where to look). While the Howard County police were helpful, we never received a word back from the Avalon. Never. Also, the parking was indeed a huge problem. They have a permit system, but it doesn't seem to help. I think what they need to do is assign parking spots but that would probably cost too much money to manage. And if you *are* going to live here, absolutely get a top floor apartment since you can hear everything from your neighbors. We had chefs living above us who worked late hours, and while they were in general a quiet bunch, just them getting reading for bed at 1am on weekdays would wake us up (walking around, closing drawers, pipes from showers, etc.) There is absolutely no sound proofing.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/23/2009
Swimming pool- lifeguard was always having "break time" where he talked on the phone and you couldnt get in the pool Parking- dont go out after 6 because when you come home you won't get a space near your apartment. Noise - it was so bad i moved. I also had ants. Our dishwasher did not drain properly- there was always a puddle of dirty water at the bottom of it. Manitenance did not fix it. Mold issues around windows and in bathrooms. We cleaned it using tilex, X-14, bleach, but it just grew back. Windows need to be replaced to fix mold problems. Also, our BGE bill is the same amount for my 3 level townhouse, as it was at the apartment. Something wrong with insulation. "No soliciting policy" not enforced. people always knocking on your door trying to sell you magazines and newspapers We lost our security deposit and had to pay more money, when we moved out because the carpet needed to be replaced. After 3 years, i would hope the carpet would be replaced but did not expect to have to pay for it myself. How long is an off-white color carpet at a rental supposed to last? Scary apartment complex with lots of crime less than half-mile away. Overpriced for what you get.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/23/2009
We moved to renovated apt in 2008 and moved out because of many reasons like noise, heating the place will cost you as much as rent... appt is old and sucks up power. The kitchen and baths are way out of date... We used to live on first floor, so beware; there is no proper security door in this community. Management is not friendly. Summer and fall is horrible with all kind of bugs (roaches, spiders, spider webs, centipede, crickets) will see everywhere. Water boiler is very old...water gets cold in 10 min......one day boiler got burst in apartment and water was everywhere.....when we moved; management charged us for carpet replacement. Who does that? Its not our fault and boiler door is always locked and can be accessible by only maintenance people. They charged extra 500$ hidden fees when we left that apartment. When we wanted to move out me and my roommate went to the office three times to talk to the manager and manager was not available all the time. Then staff told us that you dont need to come every time to the office and they told me that they will give us a call as soon as manager is available. It took almost 3 to 4 weeks we didnt receive any call from management. We could have save almost a month rent if management was professional enough to give us all the information on first day when we decided to move from that apartment. Very disappointed with the management

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