DO NOT RENT HERE!
From:
-Anonymous-
Date posted:
11/18/2006
Years at this apartment:
2003
-
2006
This place has been a nightmare. I lived here a few years ago, under the previous management, and loved it. Great landscaping, gym, nice patio, affordable, even if the maintenance was slow it was still a great place. I moved in with my cousin for a while, and when I moved back it was to the new management. The management is unhelpful and sometimes rude, the maintenance deplorable, the security laughable, and the rents constantly rising.
In the two-and-a-half year I have been living here, two serious maintence problems have gone unfixed. The first is my dishwasher, which has never worked. I've faithfully made my bimonthly pilgrimmages to the leasing office to remind them that it doesn't work, but have had little show for it except an occasional bumbling idiot showing up to scratch his head at the issue, fiddle with it, shrug and walk off saying "it's fixed." When I turned the 'washer on, tripping the door latch so I could watch it "operate" (a manuever I had to teach to a couple of maintenance men) you could clearly see the machine spining and grating/rumbling ominously but NO WATER, except for a few occasional high-flying droplets, emerging to wet my dishes. I should note that I only was graced with such excellent service about once for every six times I contacted the office. After repeated failures to fix the outdated, inoperational dishwasher, I eventually contracted a promise from the asstistant property manager to replace the unit, but when I called up a couple weeks later to find out why it was not installed, it was "on order." When I called a couple weeks later to ask why it was not installed, they had never promised to replace it and there was no order in for a new one. Why would I think that' The asst. property manager, who had no recollection of promising to install a new unit, said that approving a new unit was the domain of the maintenence manager. The maintanence manager thought this authority was wielded by the asst. property manager. Some time was spent working that out. When that was worked out, she decided they needed to try to fix it a few more times to make sure it was really broken. Since I'd already gone through 2 "last check to make sure it doesn't work" visits, I was less than enthused about this process. The visit never happened, and I gave up on the dishwasher. I am still washing dishes by hand, whenever the "hot" water in my kitchen is actually hto enough.
So, the dishwasher was a fiasco, but that is not really important. That was just a warm up. The real issue, which, as evidenced by the water stains existant when I first saw my apartment, predates my occupation, is far more egregious. When ever it rains, water pours through my kitchen LIGHT FIXTURE as well as through a couple holes near the wall. I'm a mechanical engineering student, not an electrical one, but I'm pretty sure that water in an electrical fixture is an electrocution and fire risk. The water ruined the sheetrock and has rotten the wood forming the wall and baseboard, fostering a lovely ecosystem for roaches and slugs. Whenever it rains, the slugs flee the moisture by crawling around my kitchen floor (and sometimes they come out when it's not raining, just for exercise.) So, when it's raining at nighttime and I want a drink from the kitchen, I have to stumble through the kitchen in the dark whilst hearing the extemporaneous kitchen ceiling waterfall noisily splashing over my floor (as I do not want to turn on the light fixture fearing electrocution or fire from the combination of electrical current and said waterfall.) Then I step on a slug. Barefoot. In the dark.
There a few things that can compare in terms of absolute obscenity and vileness than stepping on a slug barefoot. Combine that with being in the dark, with your light fixture happily dripping dirty rain water on your head instead of photons, when all you wanted was a drink of water at 2am, and it's a rather unpleasant feeling. I am not really disgusted by slugs or mollusks/insects in general; I rather admire them so long as they're out in my garden eating my strawberries where they should be, not adhering to every tread on my foot like superglue. The fond sentiments are ruined when I'm trying to wash gastropod viscera off my foot at 2am in the morning (and it doesn't just wash off, with water or even with soap, you have to _scrape_ it off. This results in the slug goo being trasfered to under your fingernails, where a toothpick can then remove _most_ of it.) I think that is the real reason I am leaving Bayou Park- not the incompetant, rude staff, not the non-existant maintanence, the crime, the unfullfilled promises, not the constantly-raised rents, visible mold on my wall or the electrocution risk- gastropod viscera. I really can't stand it.
Oh, did I talk about the mold' My sheetrock was replaced in early '05, I think, but the leak never was, despite aforementioned bimonthly notices to Bayou Park. This meant that the new sheetrock has since degraded to a far worse state, as the leaking seems to only be getting more pronounced with time. The wall is discolored and in some places soft and squishy, with occasional cracks forming in the ceiling. Mold has flourished in this wet environment, and as I have an allergy to mold, I now must be doped up on Alavert most of the time. I replaced my AC filter with a superior "mold-removing" one, try to stay out of my kitchen, and try to leave windows open whenever possible for fresh air, which helps somewhat.
I am on the first floor apartment. Twice they say they've "worked on the gutters" and once "looked inside the units above [me] to see if the water was leaking from the roof, through the third and second floor kitchens, and into mine." I have looked into the issue and have found that there is water damage on the stairwell landing and saw a location where water was entering this area, which happens to abut the area in my kitchen where the leaking has occured. Having notified the apartment of this twice, and having actually taken a maintanence man to this place and pointed it out to him, I was a bit suprised when I called to ask what had been done and the manager said that the "checked the gutters again" and "they didn't see any leak there[the gutter]" and so put it down as fixed.
This illustrates the general incompetance of the maintanence which extends to just about every issue. Oh, and do NOT, if you for some reason rent here, notify the office staff of your maintanence problems. They will make a note on a slip of paper, nod thoughfully, and completely forget about it. You have to notify the maintanence office directly.
There is a pattern of failed promises and emphasis on appearance and not on substance. The "secure gates" are left open and usually broken more often than not, and I have never seen the ped gate closed. The ped gates along Memorial are also left open and unlocked. There are numerous burglaries and thefts (possibly worse') on the premises, and last year the complex stopped leaving "courtesy notes" to let you know when a crime had occured. Twice I awoke to a car alarm going off, but instead of clicking off abruptly either automatically or by the owner, I heard a motor start and the sound grow gradually fainter, as it moved further away and eventually out of hearing. I tried to think to myself of an innocent reason for this to occur, not involving a car theft happening a few meters from my bedroom window, but as of yet have not come up with anything.
There was also a scary period of time where I would come home to find my apartment unlocked, and no record in the complex's key log of maintanence checking it out. Also, the frame of the door was bent slightly such that the deadbolt would not operate. As a female living alone, I don't like going to bed knowing that at any time at night someone could enter my apartment silently while I am sleeping; a shotgun under the bed and a knife under the matress were small comfort. It took the complex 2 weeks to change my lock and fix my deadbolt. Oh, and the security guard doesn't exist. The old management had the security booth at the gate manned, and had regular foot patrols by the guard. The current management pays for a tennis instructor, but not a security guard, and the escalating crime shows it.
The hot tub is often not heated, and the advertised "heated" lap pool is not longer heated. The water bill for the entire complex is divided among the tenants, along with the gas used to heat the water, such that you are also footing the water bill for the landscaping and the pools. The water/sewage hot water gas bill is regularly 35-40$, which is annoying to someone who conserves resources. Also, the features you are promised when you tour the model units may never materialize. For example, when I moved in I was promised four-panel doors and knobs on all of my cabinets; the knobs were "on-order" for six months before I gave up, and the four-panel door were "only for new units," whatever that means in a 30 yr old complex. I didn't really care much about this; by the time had come to follow up on it I had discovered that my dishwasher didn't work and my kitchen was dripping.
The "regular" pest control doesn't happen. The roaches are rampant, and I've only escaped the rats my neighbors are bemoaning by having an exceptionally good mouser.
The list prices on units are always artifically inflated, but luckily, there always happens to be a good "promotion" deal going on when you're there that "will be over in a couple days! Better act quick!" While waiting in the office for help on my maintanence issues I've heard the routine gone over a thousand times. Don't believe it.
The washers are activated by cards wich you credit cash to by inserting 5-20$ bills into a hatefull machine they keep in the gym. It will eat your 20. The leasing office tells you it's not their problem, contact the company they contract it with. They will never resond. It's lost, you just have to mourn and get over it, untill it happens again. Then you find a private laundromat. Also, sometimes the cards mysteriously become unreadable, which is also Not Their Problem.
I think I could go on all night. I've not even gotten into the rudness of certain elements of the management, or any of the myriad other problems. I think you get the point by now. I'll be escaping in a month, to a place with a brand new dishwasher, 3 minutes away, that costs $100 less a month. Hopefully it'll be bereft of kitchen slugs.
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