My husband and I rented an apartment here at Meadow Creek back in 2008 sight unseen when we were moving to Oregon from Texas. At first glance the property seems nice (they have some wonderful landscaping however, they do not take full care of it on a daily basis). There are many times that these little rivers and waterfalls are full of moss and nothing but a bug related breading ground. We also recently heard that the upkeep on them is too costly, so they will soon be filling in the little rivers around the complex with rocks.

The place seems a bit more updated since they (recently) decided to refresh the place with new paint and filled in some of the bumps in the parking lot areas. As for the inside of the apartments (most of them are outdated and slightly pricey for the look of the inside).

The apartment we are currently in is $635.00 a month (but we have been informed that their rent per apartment changes every week, so if you view an apartment during one week but don't decide to take it then and come back the following week the rent amount will be different) but the inside of it has not been updated by any means. Our appliances look as if they are from the 70 s and barely work. Even my new dryer won t operate properly because of outdated electoral outlets. So I have to run my dryer twice to get our clothes dry therefore making my electric bill go up.

Not to mention the fact that our new apartment had Black Mold that they failed to inform us of and we had find out from our upstairs neighbor who was friends with the previous tenants.

The office staff has a complete lack of courtesy, customer service, legal knowledge and professionalism. Even the office manager (Tracey) lacks any legal knowledge and if you ever have any financial disputes with them and have to speak to her regarding the matter, her lack of legal knowledge becomes quite apparent. We must also mention their use of shady business practices, which brings me to the most outrageous compliant I have about Meadow Creek.

They are currently trying to evict us with a 72hr notice for non-payment of rent (even though I have already paid the rent off in full plus the water, sewer and trash. However I was blatantly told by the leasing agent that she was going to hold my check so that they could get us into court because we owe fees from another apartment back from when we transferred a few months ago.

I have looked up the laws and they cannot evict you on a 72hr notice for non-payment of rent if all you owe are fees. So they use shady and non-professional business practices by using this loop hole (holding or refusing to except your rental payment so that they can take you to court therefore racking up more fees that most people cannot afford with our current economy).

My husband and I have made every effort within our power to come some kind of arrangement with Meadow Creek to pay these fees but they are being very unreasonable and not willing to work with us. Not to mention all the other little things they have done to us since we have lived here.

When we transferred from a 2 bedroom to a 1 bedroom we still had a few days on the lease for the 2 bedroom but they went in anyway, did an inspection and then changed the locks but we still had stuff in there. They broke the law because we still had 4 days left on that lease. If I took them to court over this I could have asked for (up to 2 months worth of rent) instead the apartment manager took 3 days of prorated rent and took it off of our balance owed.

Aside from them changing the locks on our last apartment they also charged us outrageous and unreasonable fees for paint and carpet replacement when we only lived there for a year. Not to mention that I have asked twice now for confirmation that the work was actually done and have yet to receive this documentation.

The carpet replacement I can understand because we have a dog that was not fully house trained at that time. But they charged us about $80.00 for painting and the labor to do the painting when to me that should qualify under normal wear and tear. It s not like there were major holes in the walls or anything just some minor nail holes and they never told us that we couldn t put nails in the wall.

But all of this shows how shady and unprofessional the staff is; they have no regard for their residents and a complete disregard for the landlord and tenant laws.

Do not and I repeat DO NOT live here you will get royally screwed not only by the staff but by Equity Residential in general as I m sure most of their properties operate in this unprofessional manor.

User Responses
From: TeamAura	Date: 11/07/2009
I would agree with some of this. The grounds are nice and, although the apartment is dated, I think it is still a good deal for the square footage. They are very passive aggressive with their notes on the tenants doors. We had a nasty letter about eviction placed on our door after we were late on our rent. Granted we were late but we moved in just a few days before the end of the month. With all the chaos of moving in we thought we paid for those few days PLUS the next month but we had only paid for the last few days of the month. Instead of a courtesy call they left a nasty eviction notice threatening to take us to court. From talking to other neighbors, I know they absolutely won't work with you under any circumstances if you are having problems paying rent on time. I would still recommend living here but I have only lived here a couple of months so far.

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