OJP used to be a decent place to live, even for a complex on the very edge of Lake Oswego. With its new CA investment group and management, OJP is an aggravating fiasco. It's really no wonder there has been such a constant flow of move-outs.

HIGHWAY ROBBERY: When a private CA investment group buys a property in OR, it's pretty certain that their primary intent is to make cursory cosmetic enhancements and then immediately jack the rent up as high as law will allow. How do I know this' I worked locally for one of the largest CA management groups and I used to oversee some pretty scary rent raises in Oregon. MY RECENT 42% RENT INCREASE at OJP is absolute highway robbery. Other residents are seeing similar rent increases, though some are only as high as 20%. Still, 20% rent increase is just insane.

SAFTEY/CRIME: When I first moved to OJP, there was a night guard patrol that used to walk and drive the property, often with a dog. There was never a single incident on the property. Once the CA team took over, they fired the guard. Shortly thereafter, my neighbor's car was broken into, and late-night (midnight-3am) parties and yelling matches have been happening outside in the parking lots. When I call OJP, I'm told they will take no action or responsibility and that I need to contact the police. The Lake Oswego police dept is an excellent group, but since OJP is so far from the police station, their reaction time is slower than needed. In short, the safety at OJP has been dramatically undermined thanks to the CA owners' profit margins. (Update: yet another break-in occurred recently. OJP management was nowhere to be found when the police were on site. The next day, an OJP rep was seen escorting police to another section of the property. Another break-in' I certainly hope not, but it looked probable.)

INFESTATIONS: Several of my neighbors and I have experienced recurring ant, spider and carpet beetle infestations. We've made countless calls to management, but despite our efforts to relay the urgency, OJP is either slow to react or has a passive, unconcerned attitude about it. An exterminator has sprayed my apartment at least 4 times in 4 months, and we still have large winged ants crawling in through the walls. It's disgusting, and it's also a health hazard.

MOLD: Do you like black mold' Well, that's what you'll get in some of the underground storage units. Creepy, smelly black mold on the 2x4 beams and sheet-rock walls that make up the storage units. One of my storage units was so moldy, management had to move my stuff to another location. Even after bleaching, the mold seemed to grow back as if nothing happened.

PARKING: When I moved to OJP, I was promised a covered parking spot. In 3 years, I never received one. What DID happen was that several new residents in my general area were given the remainder of covered spots. It was like a Ponzi scheme - they get you in with great promises, then they forget you and make promises to the next group of potential residents. General parking is hellacious. Tight spaces lead to multiple dings on doors. HUGE buses and utility vans park in spaces making adjacent spaces unsafe or too tight to use. On the upside, lighting is good, so you can generally see your car late at night.

CARPT CLEANING: I was promised that OJP would spring for carpet cleaning once I passed my first year and signed on for a second year. I did so, but OJP didn't do the carpet cleaning. I asked numerous times, but they only said they'd look into it. No word ever came back, so I had to pay for ChemDry out of my own pocket. False promises are a poor way to conduct business.

MAINTENANCE: While several of the maintenance guys are really nice and very competent, the remainder are somewhat sketchy. Last year, when a maintenance guy was working in my apt, he started telling me a story of something that happened while he was in prison. Fantastic - an ex-con in my apt! As for quality of maintenance work, it's really a crap shoot. If you get the right guy, you'll get awesome service. Get the wrong person and you'll have repeat visits to fix the same problem over and over again.

BUILDINGS: It is common knowledge in OJP that the apartment buildings are "settling". This means that the buildings' frames and foundations are moving ever so slightly. As a result, my apartment has new wall cracks every six months. Two of my doors keep popping out of the frame - I have to repeatedly force the door to shut completely, otherwise wind and bugs have free reign into my apartment. The window frames are also bending under the stress of the building. Each winter, I have to tape my windows shut to keep the cold air from blowing in an jacking up my electric bill.

AESTHETICS: While OJP is situated on one of the most prime pieces of real estate in the NW Lake Oswego area, the grounds are apathetically maintained. On numerous occasions, I have had to personally pick up garbage and other debris from the walkways and parking areas to prevent the sensation that I was living in a bad LA neighborhood. I once counted over 46 pieces of garbage around a single building. Lazy pressure washing is done yearly. I say lazy because you can clearly see the funky pattern of what was cleaned and what was overlooked, like dirty, mildewy artwork all over the walkways. The new CA investment team selected a poop-brown and puce color theme for the buildings that even the on-site management thought was a bad choice. Given their 700 mile distance, the ownership didn't feel the personal insult and aesthetic sting when the new poopy paint went up all over. Most buildings, including mine, have been partially painted for over 6 months. It's like a poorhouse, or something reminiscent of an older mobile home park's common building. Blech.

WASHER/DRYER: True, OJP offers washers & dryers in each unit. What they don't say up front is that the units are half-size stackables, like what you might find in a 300 square foot studio in NY. Even though the laundry rooms have space for standard units, OJP went the cheap route and put a counter/shelf unit next to the stackable washer/dryer. This has been the case for years - long before the new CA crew took over. If you have a lot of laundry to do, find another place to live, or pay extra for dry cleaning.

SUMMARY: I would feel very guilty recommending OJP to a new resident. Anyone moving into OJP will undoubtedly do so with a fresh, open mind and with grand expectations as promised by management. Sadly, they're likely to experience sincere disappointment in so many ways. They'll eventually move, much like the scores of residents seen vacating their apartments these past few weeks.

(At least there are plenty of available parking spaces now that so many move-outs have occurred!) gkZ41df9CgXQPfm8K2A7

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