Stonebridge Apartments

Horrible

I moved into Stonebridge apartments in 2008 and immediately felt right at home. Tara was the leasing agent at the time and was so personable and outgoing. The property was well-maintained, lots of friendly neighbors, and the area is nice and quiet but not too remote. Over the past four years the front office has turned over staff at least three times and has steadily declined, the quality of maintenance and the condition of the buildings has become shameful, and the tenants are starting to reflect the worst kind of multi-family housing renters imaginable. Despite all this, the single most unacceptable aspect of today’s Stonebridge apartments is their shady business practices. I’ll quickly list a few complaints I had over the past couple of years.
Maintenance is slow and the work is shabby, usually their fixes last a month or less
The contractors they hire to do some of the work are disgusting and reek of pot
The bolt lock cylinder on my front door detached from its housing, so it didn’t retract fully when unlocked, and the exposed bolt cracked the doorframe when the door opened. They replaced the entire door and sent me a bill for repair work done to a cheap door and lock that broke during routine use--are you kidding me? After going over the front office’s heads to the property managers, it was taken care of.
Water and sewage bill is handled by the property and is based on the entire building’s usage, not your own individual use. Monthly water bill reflects everyone in your building’s use divided by number of tenants…so I was paying on average $150/mo for water
Tenants in Dodge Chargers (there are three of them) burning donuts in the parking lot nearly hitting cars and kids playing outside, multiple occasions
Midnight-2am tenants routinely coming home from clubs playing rap music as loud as their aftermarket speakers will allow
The worst of it came down when I was involuntarily relocated for work. Had to break the lease, which nobody plans to do but sometimes you can’t avoid. Submitted a letter from my office on company letterhead to fulfill their “written notice” requirement and was told there would be a lease break fee and 2 months rent, no exceptions, no considerations, not even willing to discuss it. Even after almost 4 years of paying my rent on time and being a great tenant for them. Cited policy and closed the door in my face. Whatever, that ended up being $4500 to break the lease. Decided it was worth it to be rid of them. Then was asked the day before I moved to stop by and sign a form, return the keys. Not that I had time to sit around and wait until they opened, but I did anyway out of courtesy. They told me then that they did not consider my written notice to be legal written notice, that they had a form I had to sign that constituted their “written notice.” First I heard of that, which meant my earlier notice was not recognized and I now owed another month under the “2 month notice” clause. They also took the keys from me and said I had to pay it all on the spot. I argued that I had been told it was due at the end of the actual lease, 2 months from notice. She smiled and said that was only valid if I didn’t return the keys early, which I just did (at their request). If I’d kept them, I’d have another 2 months to pay and return them. Since I honored their request and returned them, I owed them right then. I was furious. To add insult to injury, they later claimed to have had to replace the entire carpet (which they claim to do on a 7-year cycle). If you move and weren’t there 7 years, you’re paying to have the carpet replaced. They also came up with another $1000 or so in bogus cleaning fees, which weren’t offset by any security deposit because the $350 fee they take from you at move-in is labeled “non-refundable administrative fee” and not a “security fee.” I tried to argue the cleaning fees and the property manager threatened to go to court and testify that I’d had pets there without noticed (never had a single pet the entire time in my apartment) and would trump up some charge about fleas and the like. Ended up getting $30 knocked off because I spackled a few wall holes from hanging pictures myself. The list of issues goes on and on, but this gives you an idea of how they operate. Once you sign the paperwork, they start nickel and diming you, treating you like garbage. You owe it to yourself to do better than this place.