We previously lived at The Cliffs in Arlington another UDR property and were very pleased. Yet we moved here thinking it would be the same with management, office/maint. personnel. Boy were we wrong!! Upon moving here numerous things were found to be wrong with the apartment upon move in. (Even after being told it looked amazing and clean) We arrived to find some type of stain on the main light fixture/fan in the living room, large scratch on the wall in the hall, cracked plastic coverings on the oven, cabinets not being installed properly (they screwed through the wood on almost every single cabinet upon install), wall sockets installed at an angle, and the big issue being a satalite only property. The tv issue would not be such if you could get HD service throughout the complex but with an apartment balcony facing north it is impossible to get a personal dish that will provide HD (as the complex still lives in the dark ages and has only regular service.) So I have 2 HD TV's that are essentially $800 standard TV's...yea not so happy about that. We've been promised that as of March 1 we would have HD service but it would cost another 20 extra on the monthly bill from ATT...pushing it to a total of 100 a month for service on the TV's alone. It now Feb 19 and they've yet to even start the install of the HD systems to the complex thus i'm sure it won't be in. (I was told when we moved in it would only be weeks before HD was available...) Another issue is Maintenance...it takes numerous requests to get problems even looked at, and then a couple more to get them fixed...even then they still aren't right. We had a set of blinds all of a sudden collapse and after being told it was going to be taken care of by a private contractor the problem was fixed by the maint. staff. Their solution...get a set of blinds from another apartment window (of different size) and install them in our apt. Needless to say size does matter when you talk about blinds and they now rub on the wall because this set is too big for this window. Another stealler job in our eyes. As for the apt. itself...walls are paper thin, you can hear everything above and beside you, and the water noise...my god you'd think we were at Hurricane Harbor. The energy bills for this place due to the windows are rather high, but again thats what you expect with poorly designed construction. An issue that goes along with the energy cost is this apartment is impossible to heat/cool in a complete fashion. Some rooms are cold, some are hot regardless of what temp you set it at. The vent system needs serious work and no solution besides reducting is available. But probably the thing that takes the cake is recently we've had a younger male adult start coming and knocking at the door asking my fianace to let him in, and what is it going to take for him to come in. Not sure if he has the wrong apt or is just a stalker but EPD has been notified of the situation. Now for the lone positive thing.. The parking for us is great (we pay an additional 100 a month, and have a good location on the property). What it all comes down to is We'll be breaking our lease coming up this April or May when our house is completed after paying abot 1000 dollar penalty to get out. Worth it in our eyes to get out of this hell hole. Avoid this place like the plague.

User Responses
From: BuyaHouse2007	Date: 02/22/2008
First off, I'm sorry you had sucha bad experience at the Mandolin. My wife and I loved it and had not a single one of these issues. We had a downstairs apartment (3-2) and it was very quiet. Also, I have nothing to back this up, but I was given the impression by the staff that they are very willing to work with tenants who are leasing and planning to move into a home. I.E. - not subjecting tenants to the full fines as long as the apartment can quickly be leased. Don't take my word for it - but it was said by staff in my presence to another tenant who took advantage of that courtesy. At any rate - I'm curious if you had a townhome style apartment or one of the apartment ones -- as the experience might be completely different. We lived in phase 2 also - which might also have made a difference.
From: hockeyplaya1423	Date: 03/07/2008
We have a 2-2 in Building 14...so to my knowledge thats not phase 2. Nothing was ever explained to us about the phases etc so I have no clue. We did not get a townhome style here we liked the 2 bedroom floor plan, little did we know what would come along with it. As for them accomidating to us moving out...not at all all we've heard from them is you will pay the reletting charge of $1006 and then they will determine what deposits we get back. Needless to say I will have this place spotless so they have nothing they can come back on us with, plus a walk through with staff before we turn over the keys is a definite. We'll check further into the no fines possibility but from the 2 rep's i've talked to its been negative so far.

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