I am moving out after living here for 3 years. I rent the 2 bedroom w/ loft option and really like the layout. I moved in with my children during a divorce from my house so had no real rental history. The space suited my needs at the time but now need to move out due to needing more space since am moving in with the boyfriend :) IF LCDM offered townhomes I would probably stay with them but I am now in the largest apartment they offer and it is just too small for my needs.

There are problems with the place I think it costs a bit much to heat and cool. My airconditioner is leaking freeon [sp'] so I pay a fortune to keep the place comfortable in the summer. The main bedroom is always the coldest in winter and warmest in summer due to large window. A negative to go with the big plus of lots of light. Also and this is a general thing for all apartments is the paint. Water based paints wash away when you try to clean up a scuff mark and shouldnt' be used in apartments especailly not in the kitchen. It is horrible to wash off spaghetti sauce spatters from wall and see the dry wall appear. Personally think apartments totally need to rethink the paint base used but I know I am dreaming.

However there are big plusses. The layout of my apartment is fabby. I need a lot of light and the feeling of room so the half wall between kitchen and living room, open dining room, and high ceiling to accomodate loft are huge pluses for me. Also the huge window in master bedroom helps me battle SAD in the winter months. But the biggest plus of all is the maintenance staff. Whenever I have called with a problem, and actually I usually just mention it when I see one of them around the grounds, things get fixed right away. I have never waited more than 24 hours to have something fixed in the 3 years I have lived here. The office staff is relatively new to me this year {they switched to new office manager and leasing agents last November} so I cannot really rate how they are. I did love the last office manager thinking she was very personable.

The maintenance problems I encountered over last 3 years are: garbage disposal stop working, kid's bathroom stopping up, and the air conditioner. I did have leaking in the living room and main bedroom one spring and they had a roofer out {the one exception to 24 hours actually but the roofer cannot work in the rain so I don't blame them} and then retouched the paint in the living room and bedroom. I also had problems with my oven heating evenly and they switched it out with another stove. I think the maintenance staff totally rocks.


THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE APARTMENT ITSELF:


Another thing & this is one reason I almost didn't resign my lease last time is the sneaky way they have of upping the rent. When I moved in the rent was 1115/mo which a friend who also was looking for an apartment informed me was the highest $/sq foot rate in the area.... worth it IMO for the layout. This price included water and trash. The second year they started charging a flat $15 for trash and water due to something about wanting to upgrade the sewage lines or some such to make them more green. One would expect construction work being involved but no such thing ever happened. Last year they went from the flat $15/mo to a billable by AUM thing so now it is sometimes $40 even $50/mo tacked onto the rent. Plus of course somewhere along the line my rent went up $10/mo. I am now paying an avg of $55 more a month mainly for trash and water and as far as I am concerned that is increasing my rent not a, as they like to say, 'we are not increasing your rent if you resign your lease' policy. I would much rather they have said we are upping your rent $25/mo {each year} to account for inflation or market rates or whatever than to say it is staying the same but wait we are billing you for something new that we didn't before hand. I understand that this is a standard practice the charging for water and trash or at least it has been in all but one of the other places I looked at this year.

Another new charge was renters insurance. yeah we all should have some but it was not required when I first moved in and then I had to get it when I resigned the lease adding to the expense of living here. They offer the insurance themselves so of course it is another way for them to get money although you needn't get it through their partner/affiliate whatever. The place I am moving into requires it upfront and, like charging for the water and trash, it is apparently an industry standard thing and of course fiscally wise thing to have but ... unlike LCDM.... I was informed upfront that this was needed instead of having a note sent to me about policy change a weel before I needed to renew.

This may be due to changing ownership or management companies but in the interest of full disclosure I can assume this trend will only continue. It was disheartening to get a letter asking if I was resigning the lease and informing me my rent was not going up and then, when it was too late to look for another place, being told that there was an additional monthly charge. Let me stress that these charges seem to be standard at all places I looked at and do not fault them for adding them was just a timing thing for me. Actually I do fault them for the water and trash because they used to consider it part of the rental costs and now do not consider it part of rent although lord knows if you didn't pay it they would say you owed on your rent. I know this because when the office staff changed last winter I got a bill for overdue back "rent" since I had been adding on the $15/mo and not some variable amount. The staff, when I went in to question them about this amount due, told me that almost everybody was in the same boat as me and they had received a TON of complaints. In other words I am not the only person who didn't get notification of the new policy and thought it sucked eggs.

HOWEVER the maintenance staff and layout of the apartment is top notch. I couldn't ask for better and recommend the apartment, or at least my model, to anybody. Seeing as the current, but new to me over the course of leasing here, charges seem to be standard they might not bother others. But in case these sort of things do bother you I would suggest looking for other places well before resigning your lease cus you never know... they may have found a way to get more without actually increasing your rent ::eye roll:: Then you will at least be prepared to move shoud any new charges upset you.

User Responses
From: _renter_	Date: 07/16/2009
And apparently I am illiterate. Was rushing to review as fully and accurately as possible without taking great care in spelling and punctuation. I do not feel up to editing it for those things.
From: ladypianokeys	Date: 07/21/2009
I also will be moving out and have lived at LeCoeurduMonde since September of 2007 and can say the same regarding maintenance issues. You and I have had several of the same issues except my apartment is a 1st-floor apartment. I had problems with the 2nd bathroom's toilet (it would randomly 'self run' all hours of day & night), also could not clean up the food splatters in the kitchen, had one of the stove elements BLOW UP (it was a MIRACLE the place did not catch fire and I was not burned because I was right at the stove stirring pasta when the element blew a hole in my pot and sparked everywhere!), leaking in the living room and in the bedroom windows during heavy rains. Fortunately since I don't have the loft ceiling heating/cooling bills are reasonable. Sadly could not use the outdoor storage area for two reasons-it's FLITHY and water leaks terribly from the deck above my 'patio' of which is not very appealing either because of the same water that pours through the deck cracks above. The most recent problem was having to listen to the churping of the low-power battery (smoke detector) for almost two weeks because they were out of batteries. On last Friday we were notified that the Staff would be going from unit to unit for overall evaluations of the conditions of the building. I am hoping they will do some SERIOUS cosmetic updates (especially to the bathrooms-my showers chrome is GROSS in places!) but of course this may mean they up the price on rent for the next 'resident'. Overall I too can say I have enjoyed living here, but I certainly look forward to leaving.

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