I am a former tennant of Greenbrook Apartments and I can say that when I first moved in, I thought that I had found a wonderful apartment community. I moved out last summer just two weeks before my lease was up and it was definitely not by choice. The rental office was lovely...rather impressive, the staff seemed to overflow with niceness, huge smiles and professional attitudes while I was there. I was so amazed by all I had seen that I came back a day later with my deposit and signed a lease. I thought it would be wonderful, however, that quickly changed as the first signs of trouble began to emerge before the ink on the lease could completely dry. I was given a walk-through as promised before moving in, but it was OF AN APARTMENT THAT I WASN"T EVEN GOING TO LIVE IN! When I arrived to following scheduled move in date to pick up my keys, they told me that there had been a mistake and that a leasing agent had given my apartment to someone else! My jaw dropped and they assured me that they had another apartment for me in a "much better" location. LIARS! They didn't have apartment keys for me, I didn't have a mailbox key and now I didn't have an apartment either. I began to boil at this point so I told them that I had taken off from my job to move and I would like to be released from the rental agreement since they did not have my unit ready as agreed. They assured me that everything would be quickly taken care of and to just give them a few moments. My moving truck was outside with my crew, they had my money, my signature on the lease and there I was needing to get into the apartment that I didn't have. I saw the leasing agent, Teresa, run over to another desk and cross something out. Another leasing agent looked upset and I overheard her whisper,"But I promised that unit to another tenant!" Teresa mumbled something to her and the other agent walked away reluctantly. A few minutes later, Teresa came back (she was later terminated about 6 months after I moved in for some shady practices) and handed me a set of keys. This made me wonder if this is what happened to my ORIGINAL unit that was given to someone else. I asked what was going on and she gigled saying that she accidentally overlooked something that stated they already had another unit assigned to me and it was ready for move in. She gave me a sheet of paper that was for a self inspection and told me to turn in any problems I saw by the end of the week. I felt that my choices were limited and I could not afford another day off work, moving truck, moving crew or migraine so I agreed. The new "much better" place was not in a great location as was my original unit and I was right on the street where you could hear the traffic driving by all night. The apartment was spacious and nice though, or at least so I thought. I learned with time that you must be leary of phoney Rita, who was the finance manager at the time but you will hear about that later on as you read the rest of this.

When I moved in, I moved in on a special which I thought was a fabulous deal! The special was that I would get the first month's rent for free (AS AMMENDS DUE TO THE UNIT MIXUP) and half off of the next three month's rent. This was absolutely awesome, so I thought until the nearing of the end of my lease. Here are the problems as I can recall them:

1. The first few months proved to be nice and uneventful until I received two neighbors that enjoyed fighting and smoking marijuana ALL THE TIME on our deck. This proved to be embarrassing when you would invite guests over and they had to walk through a cloud of dope smoke to get into your apartment. I complained to the complex and they told me to call the police and make a report. They were not willing to do anything because they felt that it is a domestic problem. ARE YOU KIDDING ME'! I am a single female who was living alone and I AM NOT about to go up to some crazed looking apparent drug lords and tell them what they can and can not do with their drugs. I am NOT the property owner, but was a paying tenant! I am not even going to talk about the porn marathons I was forced to listen to through my walls all night.

2. I had neighbors that were right across from me that had about 20 people living in the apartment who left beer bottles outside on my patio or apartment all the time. I asked them not to do it anymore, but it still happened. I complained to management and they said they would give them a warning. Hmmm, although I called several times, I guess they still "forgot."

3. If you want to get satellite, be careful. The property managers will definitely cut down your satellite dish. Oh yeah, don't be surprised at all if you come home one day and find that someone else has inconsiderately placed their satellite dish on your patio or balcony without asking you. This happened to me on a good number of occasions and I had to ask them to move it to their own terrace. I guess they didn't want a lot of junk on their own area. Sheesh! Not to mention the numerous racoons. You basically were either fighting your neighbors or the racoons for your own balcony! Believe me, you DO NOT want to tangle with the racoons.

4. Maintenance VERY slow to respond and less than excited to fix your problems. They seemed to have attitudes if you call them to come out and check on something. You have to call and call and call to have anything fixed. I even lost all of my food once because they took their time coming out to fix my refrigerator. By the time they got there 4 days later since they did not consider it an emergency, I had thrown away a good portion of my food. They claimed to have fixed it and left. The next morning, my kitchen floor was full of water. The thing had died! I called again and 3 days and no groceries later, they came again to fix it. This time they discovered that they needed to replace the refrigerator which would take another 2 days. When I asked if the apartment would reimburse me for the food I lost, they said I needed to call the rental office. When I called the rental office, they told me I needed to speak to Rita. When I asked to speak to her, she was always busy, out of the office,out to lunch or off for the day. Two weeks went by and I finally got her on the phone only to say to me that I should have filed for it the day it happened. Anything over a week old would not be considered. What a bunch of BULL! Also, the air went out more than a couple of times, the dishwasher tube that lead to the pipe under the kitchen sink flooded the kitchen,and thank God I had two full baths because the master bath toilet was always on the fritz while the water pressure in the sink or tub sometimes acted up. I must be honest and say that only two of the maintenance guys were pleasant that I encountered during my year there.

5. WELCOME TO BROWN RECLUSE SPIDER HEAVEN! Owners of small children and pets BEWARE! These are some of the most dangerous spiders on our continent and they practically took over my apartment for several months. It started with ants. I called to the rental office and asked that an exterminator be sent about the chronic ant problem. They were taking over my bedroom by coming through the window. They never sent the extermintor. This is crazy because you pay extra for them to come to your apartment each week but they would only show up about every other month. I tried every ant remedy I could find but nothing worked and then one day...the ants suddenly disappeared and I began to find myself killing an awful lot of spiders. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that they had what looked like a violin or fiddle shaped mark on their back. That's when I found out what they were. OH MY GOD THEY WERE SOME FREAKING BROWN RECLUSE SPIDERS!!!!!! I immediately called the office and informed them that I had these dangerous spiders in the apartment. I was told that it would maybe be a week before they could get someone out to the complex and see if I could crash with a friend or a relative until then! I was in disbelief, but cooperated so I found someplace to go. A week later I came back and they still had not sent an exterminator. I called again a few days later, no one came. I felt that it was not fair that I had to be out of my unit for over half a month and was still expected to pay full rent. They could have cared less for my safety or for the unfair treatment. By this time nearly THREE WEEKS had passed and the spiders were seriously multiplying. I had to be careful putting on my clothes from the closet and shake out everything I wore, even my shoes. I also had to shake down my bed sheets each night and pray that there wasn't one in the bed with me when I woke up. I spent a fortune on all sorts of remedies for spiders as well as set off the strongest aerosol bombs I could find. My brother went into the hospital with an illness which meant that I had to care for my 2 year old neice for a few days. The entire time she was there, I was mortified of the possibility of her being bitten. That was the last straw. I called again and demanded someone to come out immediately or I would have to escalate my action. The seriousness of the situation finally got their attention and they told me to pull everything from the walls and empty out my closets. I was told I would have to be away from home for another few days because the treatment was so potent. Less than happy about having to spend more money for a hotel room to be safe, I agreed to leave again. What other choice was there' I asked if I would be reimbursed for my hotel stay due to the fact of having to be out of my residence and I was told a flat NO. So basically, not only was I paying for emergency shelter due to no fault of my own, but I was required to pay the entire month's rent even though I was not even able to be in the unit for 3 weeks of the month! When I returned three days later, I swept up quite a few dead spiders, however, there were many left. This happened just two months before my lease was up.

6. Now this was the final disaster. The following month, I landed a new job which would relocate me to the east coast. I contacted the property to inform them within the required time to let them know that I would not be renewing my lease due to relocation. Now get this, you already know what expenses I went through because of them and the rent was due on the first. Before moving in, they tell you that you have until the 5th to pay it as long as it makes it in the dropbox before business starts the following day. I got a cashier's check and put it in the dropbox on the afternoon of the 5th. The following week, I got a notice on my door that fell off as I was leaving for work that morning. When I bent down to pick it up, I read that I owed an additional 10% charge as well as some sort of processing fee because I was late! I went ahead and went to work since the rental office didn't open for another hour and a half and I didn't want to be late. I called the rental office while I was at work and informed them that I had gotten payment in on time and they said that they had no proof of that so I will need to pay the extra money before the office closed that day or they will forward my information to their attorney! This was just two weeks before my lease was up and I HAVE NEVER MADE A LATE PAYMENT EVER!!!! So, I am at work and halfway across the other side of town and was trying to find out if I could leave early to get there before they closed. I got permission to leave and called the rental office from my cell phone as I dashed out the door and sped across town risking a ticket to let them know I was on my way. I was pleased that I had arrived there at least 15 minutes before closing. To my surprise, the doors were locked and the staff was gone! I could have DIED! There I was standing there with my checkbook in hand and no one to pay. So as you might well expect, I called and left a message with the answering service as well as called them the next business morning to share what happened and ask how I could get the payment to them. They flat out DECLINED to receive payment from me at the rental office and told me that my information had already been sent to the attorney and I would have to speak to the attorney from that point on. I was also told that I would be responsible for the additional attorneys fees and filing costs before Rita quickly hung up the phone before I could say a word. The entire ordeal rendered me absolutely speechless and I wanted to cry. I called the attorneys office and I was told that I had until the end of the day to pay a whopping $3,200 or they would go ahead and file it with the courts for a hearing. I asked why I was paying so much and the response I had gotten was because the apartments filed for it in their case! Now, I had recently depleted my savings on additional emergency shelter and did not have an extra few grand laying around. Needless to say, I was not able to pay them that ridiculous amount of money by the end of the day and I was served on my job two days later on Wednesday as well as at my apartment to appear in court by Friday morning. I was embarrassed to be served on my job as well as disgusted at the whole thing. I called the attorney's office once again and asked if I could make payments and they said that I would have to pay the full amount or show up in court. When I went to court on Friday, I was alarmed to see how many people were there from my same apartment community!!! Although none of them were in my particular building, it was the same apartment community. It dawned on me that more than ever, something was seriously wrong here. I began talking to people as we were waiting for our cases to be called and story after story started to sound frighteningly familiar. These people were robbers! The catch, as I foundout, was that if you get in on a special, then they will do whatever is in their power to get that money back form you one way or another right before your lease ends. The amount was so high because they want you to PAY BACK THE MONTH YOU GOT FREE PLUS ALL THREE MONTHS YOU GOT HALF OFF!!! INCREDIBLE!!!! You end up getting a judgement placed on your credit for the amount including THEIR attorney fees, court filing fees, court costs, late fees, etc. By the time I left, the judgement was nearly the tune of $4,000. I could not believe it. I had a fairly decent credit score and was planning to buy a new home once I relocated to the east coast. That would be impossible once the judgement hit my credit and when builders or realtors would call my previous place of residence for a rental history. I ended up having to stay with a friend, suck up having a HORRIBLY undeserved judgement on my credit and stuck with the nightmares of remembering this place forever. I am still struggling to get my credit back to the level that it was and I was forced to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last year because of Greenbrook. I am still trying to balance my bills and pay off the judgement since it hit my record a week after my bankruptcy was discharged. Smart people. They even navigated a way around that too!

All I can say is think long and hard before renting here. When you first see it on the outside and meet the leasing agents, it is beautiful and they successfully entice you with trinkets and boast of wondrous promises. Everything that glitters IS NOT gold so RUN AWAY FAST!!!!!

User Responses
From: xtinakirksey	Date: 05/29/2007
wow. thats the worst storty i've heard on here. i live at greenbrook with my fiance' and his brother..and we have had a few problems but nothing to that extent. well..hope everything works out in your favor from now on. good people get rewarded in the end.
From: cocoa10303	Date: 07/21/2007
That is just awful, My experience wasn't close to yours and here I was complaining. I had 2 co-workers move in I told them not to but they were amazed how cheap it was. They got their Motorcycles stolen, 2 bikes gone and they just bought them I guess it wasn't so cheap after all. I will say a prayer for you. I wish you well, You'll get that Home of yours soon enough.
From: Anonymous	Date: 05/29/2008
Damn, Babe! I really hate that -------- happened to you!! And to think, I was actually planning to move there next month!! ---- YOU, GREENBROOK -------!!! tj

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