Review History for borzon

Castlemont Arms Apartments


Review Author Icon

borzon

Resident 2010 - 2021

5/6/2021

I have lived in Castlemont Arms for more than 10 years. I am still a resident although I am not sure for how long given my experiences with them in the last year and a half after the change in management. It will in part depend on how my dialogue with them develop (see below). So I am writing this review to help the prospective tenants make a good decision armed with the information which is not visible when you have just a brief visit to evaluate the property. A few months ago the management asked tenants for feedback. Here is what I provided to them: --------------- 1. Noise insulation. Noise insulation between floors in the building is very poor to start with. Even steps of a person walking in the hallway of the upper level are very audible from the living room downstairs. In the past when carpet covered the entire apartment floor it was on the border of tolerable. After carpets in the entrance area, hallways and a half of the living room were replaced with hard floors it has become completely unbearable. Stomping and creaking sounds when someone simply walks around are extremely disturbing. Even between the apartments on the same floor across the hallway moving chairs over the hard floors of the dining area or vacuuming/sweeping/mopping in that space is disturbingly audible. But any movements upstairs are stressfully loud in the unit below. The problem is not immediately obvious and acute for someone who does not have to experience it day and night. It is not only intolerable for the downstairs tenant, but is likely to result in stress, tensions and noise complaints for the upstairs tenant and the management. If left unaddressed it is likely to keep causing high tenant turnover and vacancies. 2. Prolonged noisy construction during shelter-in-place Over the course of 2020-2021 there have been several multi-week construction projects which were extremely disruptive. The most extreme example was replacing the storage room with an indoor exercise room. This construction work was not an emergency and was purely elective. (Moreover: there was already an adequate exercise room in a detached clubhouse which was barely used by the tenants. And now the indoor exercise room will be a lovely source of additional noise for the nearby apartments) Every workday since the beginning of January 2021, for almost two months it generated intolerable daytime noise (from hammering and power sawing etc.). And all this time there has been a "shelter-in-place" order which kept tenants confined at home and having to work from home. And this construction noise throughout business hours made working from home practically impossible for tenants who were still paying full rent. "we apologize for the inconvenience" is not sufficient if "the inconvenience" lasts for months. It is customary practice for a business which can not deliver a promised level of paid service to refund its paying customers for the service it can not deliver (as an example: an airline which cancels a flight due to mechanical problems with a plane refunds the cost of tickets). 3. Rent It has been reported that rental rates in Sunnyvale dropped significantly compared to a year ago and vacancy went up. One can clearly observe significantly increased vacancy in Castlemont Arms. However this change in the rental market has not been reflected in rental rates charged by Castlemont Arms. ------------------------- The only observed effect from spending my time and effort to provide then with my very concrete suggestions so far has been a substance-free generic response with the subject "someone noticed your review" and a suggestion to "reach out to us to discuss any of this with a team member". Needless to say that NO ACTION has been taken so far on ANY OF MY CONCRETE SUGGESTIONS (despite my numerous communications on the same in the past). In the meantime extremely noisy construction projects have continued from March through May severely disrupting my work from home. My numerous communications on the same have been blatantly ignored. On May 2, 2021 I ran a quick web search for 2BR 1BA apartments for rent in Sunnyvale equivalent or better than mine. A few top results: Lincoln Glen Apartments 150-160 E Remington Dr $1,863 994 Helen Ave $1,875 Palm Villa 1209-1235 Ayala Dr $1,895 At the same time Castlemont Arms advertises an equivalent apartment for $2,600. I immediately sent a request to the apartment managers asking them to adjust my rent to match the market rate. In addition I asked them to compensate me for nearly a year of severe noise disruptions caused by their non-emergency construction projects during lockdown and fire season by providing 2-3 months of free rent. (I also pointed out that I was a tenant for over 10 years and my apartment has not cost them a cent in remodeling expenses all this time). I am still waiting for their response and will update this review with new developments.

    Review 1 out of 51

    Share This Review

    Check Availability

    Castlemont Arms Apartments

    March 2024

    Sun
    Mon
    Tue
    Wed
    Thu
    Fri
    Sat
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10
    11
    12
    13
    14
    15
    16
    17
    18
    19
    20
    21
    22
    23
    24
    25
    26
    27
    28
    29
    30
    Beds

    0

    Baths

    0

    Share This Review