I lived in Lynnewood Gardens for a year and here are several things happened to me during this year.

1. When I decided to sign the lease, I was charged $250 for "holding the apartment" for me before the paperwork (i.e. the lease) was finalized. The leasing agents told me that this $250 would be credited to my resident account after I moved in. OK, I trusted them. Unfortunately, this $250 was not credited to my account 4 months after I moved in. Finally, I paid a visit to their service office and asked about it. Their answer was, "Whoops!"

2. As their lease said, everyone has to mail the monthly rent check to their office. If your mail got lost, you would be charged late fees. If you don't want to take this risk, fine, use their "automatic payment option," i.e., giving your bank account number to them and they will withdraw the rent from your bank account at the beginning of each month. In this case, you will never need to worry about the late fee. Silly me trusted them, again. It was fine in the first few months, and then I found out that they started to withdraw from my bank account about $100 more than my rent. To solve to this issue, I paid two visits to their service office: got another "Whoops" in the first time and got my money back in the second time.

3. Even if you signed a lease which specifies the ending date of your lease, it is not a real ending. Somewhere in the lease, it says that you have to notify them your moving-out 2 months before the "ending date," otherwise they will assume you will not move out and charge your for more rents. If you don't notify them 2 months in advance but still want to move out on schedule, you need to pay one more month rent as "improper notice fee." Be sure to remember your exact the exact "ending date" of your lease, people.

4. Finally, you will have the ultimate pain in the neck after you move out.Honestly, I didn't expect to get much security deposit money back after the three things above happened to me. Unfortunately, Lynnewood Gardens will always surprise you and go beyond your expectation. When I moved out, I paid the last-month rent and the "improper notice" fee. And the only thing I wanted was to get out of there and have nothing to do with it any more, but the Lynnewood Gardens just don't let go. One month after I moved out, I received a final bill indicating that (1)I am not getting my security posit back, not a single penny, and (2)I owed them another $1000. The most ridiculous thing was, all the charges on this final bill were listed in three-letter or sever-letter codes, for example, I was charged $600 for "JCHARI."

Life is not easy and never gonna be, but at least you could save yourself some trouble by staying away from Lynnewood Gardens.

P.S., I was surprised that someone responded to my comments 30 MINUTES after I posted mine, and this someone happened to stay in this place so many times and got all the deposits back. What are the odds! Either someone was really lucky, or maybe it is just me being really unlucky. Anyway, here are my final words: if you are new to the Philadelphia area, really need to move in a place right away but can't find anything else, maybe you want to try Lynnewood Gardens. They always have lots of vacant apartments available, always. After you move in, be a lucky tenant!

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/06/2008
Just thought I'd point out that #3 is common with most leases. You are supposed to give them a 60-days notice of you moving out just like with any other rental place - even if there is a set move-in and move-out date. As with your security deposit, I've lived here on three separate occasions and received them all. Must be luck of the draw.

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