Review History for mangodebango

Homestead Apartments


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mangodebango

Resident 2013

12/8/2013

DO NOT RENT AN APARTMENT FROM THIS PLACE! I have been renting a small studio apartment here since January, 2013 and will be moving out very soon (so virtually a full year here). Firstly, if you do check out an apartment to rent here, make sure you ask to see where the assigned car space/s for that unit is located. After I signed a lease at an agreed unit, I was moved from El Rancho to the Plaza before my move-in date as the tenants in the original unit decided to stay. The studio apartment I ended up staying in is OK it terms of location, but the car space assigned to it is a LONG walk from my front door. There are "open" car spaces close to me, but the new Car Park company that Arnel (the leasing management company) have signed a deal with is atrocious. The new parking management company, West Coast Parking, will not accommodate any requests and the lady that answers the phone there is just plain, rude. You can no longer park in "open" spaces if you only have one car and you have to have a silly large permit hanging off your rear-view mirror if you manage to get one. I was able to park in an open space near my unit (when there was one available) for most of the year. Just as well I plan on leaving because the new parking arrangement is a total nightmare - and I lived alone in my apartment with one car. What's more, the gated areas are not safe. I was accosted by young scammers posing as students looking for education charity donations. They must have jumped a fence and went around door-knocking looking for bogus donations. The night they hit this community, I was approached when I got out of my car and they hassled me all the way to my front door. The scammers claimed they had authorised access to approach residents for donations. When I notified management about it the next day, I found out several people had "donated" checks to these kids and nothing was done about it. The noise levels aren't all that great. There are little kids that run around and race each other on the paths. They scream alot in the evenings and the walls sound like they are wafer thin. I'm on the ground floor and I can hear the tenants above doing anything in their bathroom or when my ground floor neighbor slams his front door. I also suspect the apartments on the western side get a lot of traffic noise from the 57 freeway (although I can't confirm this). Inside the units the lighting is very crappy. Maintenance are slow to replace lightbulbs. And when they do, it is those terrible new white energy saving bulbs which flicker. I ended up putting in plain ones at my own expense. The gardeners blow leaves on to my small, walled in patio every week. Just as well I don't use it much as it gets completely covered in old, rotting leaves. The power to my area (The Plaza) was cut off for a day in the summer without any warning. When I complained, the management blamed the power company and said warning notices were sent in the mail. I never received one and almost lost a fridge and freezer full of food. I have had the water to my unit tampered with on several occasions. Sometimes the cold water will not be working and other times there will be no hot water. There is also something suspect with the laundry machines if you want to run a hot wash load. The best I can get some of those machines (in the Plaza) is to a luke warm temperature (for white loads). There has also been a very high turnover of property managers for The Plaza (and probably the other areas too). I think I've had at least 3 or 4 and I've been here less than a year. Taking all of the above into account, I'd suggest you look elsewhere for renting an apartment. I'm glad I'm finally leaving.

    Review 18 out of 230

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