Samantha C.
Yelp
Living here was HORRIBLE. Let me start by saying that I am a good tenant - I'm quiet, I pay my rent on time, I'm friendly with neighbors and I keep my apartments clean.
I moved into a newly renovated apartment which caused me to be sick for the full year that I lived there because the plumbing was full of black mold. Cortland Partners makes the mold your problem by having fine print in the lease that says you are responsible for the cost of the removal and inspection, even in my case where it grew up out of the bathroom plumbing within a few days of my move-in. Maybe I'm disillusioned for thinking that "newly renovated" would also mean clean.
I also had a ton of issues dealing with the office. The woman I signed my lease with was great and friendly, but I couldn't get help with anything if it happened to be a day she wasn't working. They never answer the phones, they don't return messages EVER, even when the purpose of the call is something that would make them more money (like adding a pet to the lease), and they never know how to answer even the simplest questions. In short, the leasing staff is pretty much worthless.
Also, for someone who tends to stay quiet and to myself for the most part, I had a lot of issues also with the trash - I mean "other tenants" - in the community. Some of my neighbors were very nice, but most of them were loud, had apartments that reeked so much of pot it could be smelled from outside, fights and parties in the parking lot at all hours... I was walking my puppy one night and one of my neighbors shot bottle rockets at us. Some tenants also had unregistered animals and they would sick them unleashed on other people's pets. One of my really nice neighbors had to get her dog stitched up because of an incident like this.
My apartment at Preserve at Deer Park, was to be quite honest, the biggest waste of money and one of the largest stressors I've ever had in my life. I never felt safe (my apartment was even entered by construction workers illegally once) and the company didn't seem to care that tenants were miserable. Did I forget to mention that none of the amenities I was promised here were available because they were "under construction" for the whole term of my lease (which meant no pool, no gym, no landscaping, no parking, no security guard like promised, no gate like promised after tons of break-ins in the community) yet I had to pay for them? When a pool was finally opened, people from the trailer park across the street came into the community and used the amenities that I had to pay for. I went as far as calling the Cortland Partners property headquarters in Georgia to get questions answered because nobody here could actually help me with anything (if they even bothered to return my messages or give me the time of day when I went in person to the office). For example, I called them at the leasing office on July 13, 2014 and didn't get called back until MAY 2015! Don't move in here if you're looking for somewhere to live happily and healthily - you will regret it. My bills were never correct, leasing agents told me they didn't know how to use the rent system to be able to help me get the correct rent paid.... I could go on and on but I think you get my point and I don't want to raise my blood pressure anymore with this review. In short, I did everything I could to break my lease early so I could leave.