Pond's Edge

 

This place is a management nightmare.

There is absolutely no professionalism or order to anything at this complex.

We have lived in several apt.

locations in 5 years, and this is by far the worst place we have ever lived.

We first dealt with Chris when trying to arrange for the initial rental.

After we had received price quotes, and applied, it took them over a month to process our application fee.

I had to call several times to ask, and oh, by the way, Brenda and Brandon were now working here and said that Chris no longer worked here so they had no idea what he quoted us for rent or anything.

Thankfully, I wrote it all down so I could tell them what we were expected to pay, etc.

Trying to arrange to move on Saturday (a normal move in day for a lot of people) turned into another logistic nightmare.

Brandon said that he would not be here, but Ashlyn, his assistant would be here to give us the keys, etc.

He said she had his cell phone number if she needed to call him.

We arrived at 9:00 am and Ashlyn was there, but she said they didn't have the keys for our apartment or our garage and also did not know how to contact Brandon.

After arguing with her and trying to get our keys, and her refusal to call Brandon, my husband called the police to see if they might be able to track down our keys.

Miraculously, Brandon showed up, smoking a cigarette and badmouthing the manager.

Very unprofessional.

He took out a box of keys (literally a bunch of keys thrown in a box), and then walked us over to our garage, found our house key and then dumped all the keys in front of our garage attempting to open the garage.

Turns out the garage was unlocked anyway, but there was no way to open it once we locked it, so we had to get a new lock.

Finding out that he didn't have the key, he said he'd call maintenance to rekey the garage.

All of this took an hour! Then, our friends moving with us arrived, and BIG SURPRISE, no keys for their townhouse either.

They tried 2 sets of keys before being told their lock would have to be changed as they waited over 2 hours for a locksmith.

Their door was actually scratched and broken because maintenance had to try to break into their house before resorting to rekeying the locks.

As for us, we waited until almost 3 pm to get a lock on the garage.

PS- no one was there to deal with the lease or tell us how much we really owed, so we were given the keys with no signing of the lease as Brandon told us that Brenda would have to do that.

I tried calling the office to get Brenda, but of course, no calls back and she wasn't there.

I wrote a letter twice and called several times to the Delaware management company (Vintage) and no response.

After one week or so, I got a hold of Ashlyn and Brandon who told me that Brenda no longer worked there so he was forced to go over the lease with us, sign it and take care of the prorated rent payments, etc.

Who the hell moves into an apartment without keys, and then doesn't sign a lease right away We also needed maintenance to fix our master toilet which wobbled when we sat on it.

After a week, the shower handle fell off the master shower.

This all took almost two weeks to get fixed.


Denise was sent here from corporate to "manage" the office until Sharon showed up.

Sharon was here for a couple months and I just found out that she is no longer here either.

Now we have Kim and another person, and Chris is back but Brandon is gone and so is Ashlyn.

We had to break our lease early and we are being charged almost $4000 to leave early- two months market rent plus the discount difference for the months we lived here.

We received a move out inspection notice but no one in the office knew about it.

The only way they figured out it needed to be done was because I went to the office to find out a time.

The move out preinspection was a joke.

A leasing office employee came to the apt, briefly looked in each room, no checklist or anything and just said she was looking for any excessive maitenance needs.

Needless to say, I am taking photos of the entire apartment before we move out so they cannot charge us for erroneous damages.

I asked them to put in writing the amount of money we owe on move out and for some reason, this is some sort of difficult chore for them.

They are poor about keeping records, obtaining records, and following through on anything their residents need.

If they had good leadership and a protocol for how to run things consistently, they would probably avoid all of these problems.

Any person with common sense could run this place- I guess they don't have a lot of that in their applicants!

As for the day to day, generally it's not bad.

We will say that there is a lot of noise.

Basically, it sounds like a trampling herd of elephants everytime someone walks up or down the stairs.

We can hear our upstairs neighbors, and there are really no enforcing of rules around here.

The summer time brought us an infestation of fruit flies, probably precipitated by the disgusting garbage cans that were never cleaned.

By the way, if you are trying to set up utilities, you have to be really on top of it.

Their water company is run by Conservice and it took us almost 2 months to set up our bill.

We only did so for fear that we'd be charged later.

Now we have to rely on the leasing office to cancel, so we'll have to follow up a million times I am certain.

We have been here for 7 months and are glad to be leaving.

This place is really disorganized, managers and employees are constantly in a rotation, and I am amazed that they are still able to function.

Pick another choice if you are going to live in the Salisbury area.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/18/2009
pondsedge- your complaints are valid. Two weeks ago the manager was Diane. There have been 10 managers here in the just barely two years since this complex opened. Only two of the original first 30 days' tennants are here, and I am leaving very soon. I was forced to renew my lease at least 60 days early last year. this year, they only renew leases if someone asks for it- same for the 20% rate drop- if one doesn't ask for it, they get renewed at top dollar! When I did renew last year, a week later I was asked for my copy of the first lease, as there was no copy here or at the district office! I suggest you mail the water company a copy of your move-out papers, otherwise you will be billed until someone else leases your old apartment. With 30% of the apartments vacant, that could be a long while. My water bill was to be grandfathered into Pond's Edges account and still I get notices every week. One month my water useage for just me was over $48.00!! FYI- all managers, except for one, were fired, as was Doreen, the district manger, in November. When I renewed my lease in Dec., '07, it was at top dollar. My new lease was in effect on March first. By mid-April, the rent on my style apartment dropped by about 20%. And, no, they refused to adjust it until March 1, 2009, if I renewed my lease. I'll be moving very soon also. FYI- it may take months to get your security deposit refund check, so don't hold your breath! Enjoy your new home!!!
From: pondsedge	Date: 01/19/2009
I forgot it was Doreen, and not Denise- who can keep track??? Thanks for the suggestion on the water company receiving a copy. Conservice basically said that they would have to receive something from the office that states we are no longer living here before they will cancel the account. So I will surely send all evidence I have to them regarding vacating. Luckily, we did not have as security deposit. We moved in under a "special". But we are entitled to get half of our pet deposit back provided there are no damages (which there aren't). I asked to do the walkthrough before we leave and apparently they do have a checklist for that- we'll see. I'm still taking my own notes and taking pictures because who knows how long Diane or anyone else will be here. Good luck with your move too and sorry we are all in this same sinking boat!
From: cpviolet	Date: 01/19/2009
Wow...this places REALLY has issues.

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