Apartment Review for Rosehill Apartments - Alexandria, VA

I have a terrible experience at Rosehill. I can not wait until the end of my lease. I stayed here for one lease term and will not be renewing. I will give you an honest opinion about my experience b/c I wish I would have been given this information when I moved here. I move frequently because of my job and have lived in a number of states and honestly, I have not been more disapointed in an apartment complex. I am not a high maintenance person but I do believe in customer service and professionalism. TENANTS: The other tenants are quiet and respectful and I have had a good experience with my neighbors MANAGEMENT: The management of the company is unprofessional and has poor customer service. I am not the only tenant who has had a bad experience --many people leave the apartments dissatisfied and disapointed. MOVEOUT: In fact, most of my friends have moved from here and have reported absurd move out procedures and unnecessary charges upon move out---$20 if you have a light bulb out, $40 if you did not clean the bathroom mirror, $60 if your ice tray is missing, $60 if you did not clean your blinds, $80 if you did not vacuum and STEAM Clean your carpet. It seems ludicrous--but don't take my word for it. Ask to see a move out form (with the expenses) before you agree to sign a lease there. Of course I make sure that my apartment is clean whenever I move out but those charges are just absurd. I could not help laughing when my friends who moved showed me Rosehill's form. SERVICE: The managment makes no effort to keep tenants happy with even basic services like prompt responses to maintenance calls. Although the maintenance men at the complex are nice, there is only one or two of them to respond to service calls so it is inevitable that you will wait a lengthy period of time to get items fixed. PETS AND MAINTENANCE: To their credit, they are pet friendly. However, when you call maintenance they ask that you lock up your pet. At least twice, the maintenance man was scheduled to come fix a problem in my apartment so I locked up my pet the ENTIRE day that I was at work so that he could do the work. When I returned home, the work still had not been done and of course, my pet was not happy to have to stay locked up in one room all day while I was at work. If they were unable to do the work, I could have made a trip home to let my pet out but all they had to do was call to let me know that it could not be done on the scheduled day. MANAGEMENT DISORGANIZATION: The complex has an extremely high staff turnover rate. Make sure you document everything and follow up with them because when something comes up they will tell you that they don't have the paperwork or don't have x, y, z although you spoke to someone in the office who said they were taking care of it--and of course that person is no longer working there so they can't verify or find what the person did. EARLY CLOSING: The staff also leaves before the scheduled office closing hours--I have gone there as early as 15 minutes before closing and they the door is locked. This is a common occurrence. And most of them live on the premises so there is no reason for them to have to lock the door early. LACK OF CURTESY: On one day that they did close on time, I called to tell them that I needed to pick up a package and I was two blocks away from the office. I was driving on Franconia and Vandorn which is only a few minutes away. I told them I had a fedex package with medicine that had been delivered to the office that I needed before they closed. They said that they could not even keep the office open a second after the closing time (despite the fact that they often leave before closing) "because if they did it for me then they'd have to do it for everyone." I got there ONE minute after closing and they would not open the door. SERVICE: Another example, I have had my water turned off a number of times within a few months for a couple of hours and did not receive a warning, notice, or phone call that they would be turning off the service (for whatever reason) although the office new ahead of time that it would be turned off. TRASH/ENVIRONMENT: Although the grounds themselves are usually clean, especially the lawns But the trash dumpsters are often overflowing. There are two dumpsters in each trash area and they both are usually full and items-- trash bags, furniture, mattresses, water heaters, pipes, dishwashers (obviously this stuff was put there by management not the tenants) can be found strewn around both of them. SECURITY: I can say I did not have any security problems. I felt fairly safe. I would have them check your mailbox key. I wasn't paying attention one day (talking on my cell phone and trying to retrieve my mail) and I accidentally opened the wrong box--my key opened another tenants mailbox! It was a mistake so I put the mail back and opened my own box. The numbers on the mail boxs are engraved not printed so you really do have to pay attention to the box you're opening--but who would think that some of the boxes have the same key. Rent at your own risk.