Review for Monterey Apartments

permanently. I have lived at this apartment complex for over a year and a half now (19 months) and I would say it's a nice place to live temporarily but not all your life. The rent is very expensive (nearly $900 a month that does not include the other utility bills)and storage is an extra $10 every month as well with only one unit allowed per person. There is a late charge of $70 if you don't pay within the first five days of every month and it used to be around $30 or so. Parking outside is almost always full and costs around $15 or so every month for underground parking which is ridiculous since that should be free. It has an outstanding/excellent clubhouse compared to others in the area with a spa, sauna, workout facilities, seasonal outdoor pool, lounge, and is maintained fairly well.

In all the apartments though the carpeting is a really ugly beige color (very depressing color) and there are no overhead lights in most of the rooms. You're not even allowed to change the carpet color. The kitchen is small with no cabinet door handles and the tile floors are ordinary with no pretty designs. The storage units are very small and definitely not the size of basements so if you have a lot of stuff you are out of luck. Instead of curtains in the rooms there are awful white blinds (but you are allowed to take them down and put in those) which come down all the time and if it's crooked or something and you came out of the shower people can see right through them. I really don't know who thought of that ugly color carpeting but the designer doesn't know what great style is. If you watch home decorating shows like on HGTV, Discovery Home, or Style you would see the designer obviously never learned from them and it's a wonder why this design is even allowed to exist it is that ugly. If you don't have a car and have to take the bus it takes a long time to walk all the way out there as well and back.

The appliances that come with these units are bad too. A lot of the apartments still have microwaves made from 1984 (General Electric) that takes forever in heating up things and the fridge/freezer along with dryer are too small. The dryer takes forever to dry clothes (as much as 3 hours) and they order things made from Frigidaire which has to be thee worst appliances company ever. Even if you know what the exact model number is and you tell them on a voice message they order something different. You don't get any control or choice over what is a good working appliance that fits your needs.

The staff is even worse. Almost half of the 11 who currently work there are either rude or not very friendly or sociable. One of them is a seemingly polite smart aleck who instead of talking to clients when they have problems, calls the police or goes behind your back mentioning the problem to other people. They are a total nightmare to deal with for the most part with the exception of some and even scheme against you if they don't like you or you do the tiniest thing wrong. The ones who close up the clubhouse say bad things about residents and come up with all sorts of stuff and try to hold that against you as a person. At the resident parties all of them huddle in their own group and don't talk to anyone else including residents. It's like a popularity school act where they think their residents are low class and talk so much together it's a wonder why none of them are married to each other.
Here's the kicker of stupid things - if you have a problem with something or they receive a complaint from someone or have a problem with you they don't even contact you back about it. Instead they all go behind your back and tell it to someone else (a caretaker) who contacts you about it because that person is technically responsible even though he or she doesn't live here, involved with the problem directly, or pay for the apartment. Of course the residents never contact you directly about something if it's something you've done to annoy them - they just complain to the office people who of course don't contact you about it and proceeds the same way described above. Forget about contacting staff with anything on the phone - they either never answer it or don't return resident's phone calls or e-mail you back. They don't communicate very well at all and will never, ever call you or e-mail back. I repeat, they will never call or e-mail you back about anything! The office staff can be so infuriating at times you can't even go in person and talk with anyone about it. The maintenance staff if they come in and see a messy place when you explain you're organizing will instead say nothing and then contact their supervisors and office staff in charge about it who contact the caretaker and many times that person doesn't even notify the resident immediately for as much as one week. Sometimes you don't even hear it from them and they talk to someone else when only you contact them do they tell you about it. I don't see why in the world they cannot contact you directly - it is one of the STUPIDEST things in the world. Also the maintenance staff come in at times even when you don't schedule anything to be fixed and early in the mornings too. Sometimes it takes about 3 or even 4 trips to fix something with different staff making you explain the problem to them all over again every time. Oh and of course they think they have to maintain the furnace every few months so they keep asking you to remove all your items in front of the closet in a letter that is stuck in the door sometimes as late as the day before they come! I remember an apartment inspection notice that came to everyone like 2 or 3 days before it was scheduled to happen! That does not give enough time to clean up and if they receive enough complaints about that which of course they won't tell you about, they evict you. Doesn't seem right does it? But that's Monterey Apartments for you in that regard. They don't even talk to you specifically when they schedule stuff like that, they just stick notes or letters in your door (or sometimes on the floor in the middle of the hallway) about it so they are not very personable or friendly there either. They don't care about resolving any problems residents have with them and if anyone should venture to do anything about it, they get a threat of eviction. They had been through a court hearing once I heard.
On a positive note the office is open until 6 pm on weekdays and then on Fridays and Saturday it is open til 5 pm which is very nice and of course closed on holidays. The clubhouse is open every day from 10 am to 10 pm which is fantastic compared to other apartments. The spa is very nice but not the greatest I've seen in the world. I would like to say the environment is very peaceful and quiet around here indeed with minimal noise from the upstair's neighbors. A long while ago the upstair's noise was worse but has gotten much better. People were stamping their feet and doing gosh knows what up there.
The apartment building doors self lock and if you forgot to take your key with you and it's late at night you're sunk. I had to walk miles to a restaurant once when that happened in my sandals in freezing January (because the two neighbors I knew well did not answer their doors) only to find out they didn't have a phone to call out unless it was a 911 emergency and the manager was so rude that I had to beg her to ask a customer if I could use their cell phone to call for help. Self locking doors are certainly not needed because this is a very safe community and people can just lock their own doors if they want. But of course when you move in no one tells you this, they think everyone knows these things.

And the apartment staff won't sell their work wear even the green baseball and knit hats they have to people unless you work there which is really a bummer to someone who collects those things or someone who has a clothes fetish like me. They also have a green wind jacket pullover and polo shirts the maintenance people wear they won't sell along with a pink woman's fleece for women of course.

So all in all I would not recommend this place to be a permanent home and I'm only here because there is nowhere else to go and can't currently afford a house but once I do it will be sianarrah to this nonsense not looking back. I would rather live in a place where I don't have to deal with rude, wise alecky people and have my own choice of color carpeting and overhead lights with cabinet door handles. The rent is very expensive for what you get and other residents have told me that as well but staff doesn't care at all. It might be a nice place to live temporarily but don't plan on making this your permanent future. I wish newcomers luck with getting along with the staff as well should you decide to rent/live here!