Shawn C.
Yelp
Our experience with 1717 Webster was nothing short of atrocious due to concerning and unethical practices during our tenancy. We support GW's, Lina K's reviews (notably the additional fees charged upon lease end for general wear & tear), and encourage all prior tenants to follow up with local city council and BBB.
Email responses took weeks. E.g., we inquired 2.5 months before lease-end about renewal charges and regularly followed up. Despite persistent follow-ups, we faced delays and were informed finally on October 25 of a $4100 renewal rate, $900 higher than neighboring apartments with the exact same layout. After challenging, it was reduced to $3400, but the tactic felt highly manipulative. (Contributing to their manipulative tactic, it is worth emphasizing that they required us to provide our intent to renew/move out by Nov 1 or be charged a month-to-month rate of $4,600, but did not provide the revised rate of $3,400 until Oct 31)
We reserved the freight elevator and loading dock for move out. The sales associate called me on move out day 30 minutes prior to our reservation for the freight elevator and loading dock to ask if we could adjust our reservation by 1 hour. I responded that we could not as we had already reserved the freight elevator and loading dock for the new apartment, and they had no flexibility to adjust. We were surprised to find that the sales associate had allowed a new tenant - who missed his reservation window to move in - to take our loading dock spot as well as our freight elevator. When we went to find the sales associate to understand how this happened and how she could rectify the situation, she said she needed to do something and disappeared. Other members of the management team spoke to us, but ultimately were not willing to do anything to fix the situation other than to tell us to park behind the other movers, and to use a smaller, inconvenient elevator.
We spent over 4 hours cleaning the apartment top to bottom, inside the cabinets, scrubbing the floorboards. We finally were notified after moving out that they were deducting $225 from our security deposit. We inquired why and were told it is their policy to have the apartment professionally cleaned. We followed up via email to the property manager and requested a move out inspection report. From the report, it appears that we were charged $225 for the cleaners to remove a plastic shaker bottle and container that we forgot in the drawer, lint next to the washer, and the kitchen sink that they stated was not cleansed. We followed up again with the property manager via email to understand why the fee was $225 and how they structure their pricing (e.g., flat fee, hourly). They ignored our final email and have not responded to us as of this review (6 days since our last email to their team). This is a clear tactic to extort money from the residents.
Cheap materials used throughout the building often impact the residents. Examples include thin walls (we often heard our neighbors in the apartment directly above and adjacent to us having sex), subpar paint that is easily scuffed and should be regarded as general wear/tear ($118 was deducted from our security deposit to address light scuff marks that likely took 5-10 minutes to paint over - yet another tactic to extort more money out residents), and the AC/heat went out on several occasions (once for nearly a week during summer), while the heat regularly blew cold air.
The dog walk area was filthy and always filled with feces. Management should take an active role in enforcing rules for dog owners to clean up after their pets for the sake of the community; instead their approach was to occasionally post a note on the door to the dog walk, threatening to fine owners but again, never enforced.
A homeless person was sleeping in the stairwell just outside our apartment for at least 2 weeks. We often found empty candy wrappers and my fiance bumped into him a couple times.
The entire maintenance team was amazing; and should provide training on customer service to the management team.