Apartment Review for Cobble Creek - Salt Lake City, UT

Attention - I write this review as a warning to anyone thinking about renting here - Simply, DON'T! I have lived in many places all over the country and have never had so, many problems as I did with Cobble Creek. I don't know where to begin with what is wrong with this place. My husband & myself fell in love with the view from our one bedroom, with fireplace, apartment and for the view alone; A pond and the mountains, very beautiful, hence my 2 stars. We thought we could tough out our year lease for the view alone. However, the 6 months we lived here was too long! We where never late with a payment (luckily) they make it very hard to turn in payments, with no payment drop off place after hours. We later learned the the gas fire places cannot be controlled meaning turned off and on from inside your apartment. They are constantly on running low, which we thought was a fire hazard, but more so an expense problem for a 1 bedroom apartment that we kept at 65 degrees in the winter we were paying $200 or more for a gas bill every month because of the fire place we hardly used. The management told us the could have it permanently shut off while we lived here, but no it couldn't be turned off/on regularly. The white new kitchens in the other reviews are if you pay more for an upgraded apartment which we did not. Our apartment was very old mustard fridge, sink and stove, with a broken timer. Dark Black/Brown 70's style cabinets of which some were broken and held together with wood glue, etc... which the try charging you for. The fridge doesn't run proper and constantly gets too cold no matter what setting you turn it to and the garbage disposal needs repairing once a month. When we moved in the carpet was extremely old and worn it also had dirt spots and stains throughout, and along the doorways the carpet had been torn up like a pet had dug it up in places. The carpet by the bathroom door was so torn that the strip of wood with the nails was exposed so we had to be careful constantly not to walk on it. When we asked the Management about our carpet and could we get it fixed and or replaced they said that they were aware of the carpet's condition and couldn't replace it or fix it until after we had been their for 1 year. What a joke! Finally we had to get our friend with a carpet cleaner to come clean our carpet for us because the staff claimed it was cleaned. The previous people who lived in the apartment must have had cats, which are allowed, (hence the torn carpet) because all the closets and cupboards were coated with cat hair which we had to wipe out ourselves; Which didn't help with our cat allergies. (I thought when they made your apartment ready this would have been done - guess not!) Mold is a problem here! Black mold included! They try to cover it up in the bathroom with huge amounts of caulking around everything but after about a month of living here it starts showing through, and you can smell it too! I had constantly Clorox the bathroom sink, toilet, and bathtub/shower down try to keep the mold in control (if not the smell made me sick). Neighbors are allowed to smoke, and if this is a problem for you, do not want to rent here; their are clauses in your lease agreement that worded in legal language basically saying smoking is allowed and you know about it. The lease agreement should be the first red flag for not renting here. In my renting experiences lease agreements are generally 2-6 pages long about. Here you are given a whole novel of about 30 pages for a lease agreement you need to sign. The laundry facilities first impressed me. Most places have just a couple of washers & dryers but the place seemed to have a good amount, however, I came to find out they are constantly broken. They eat your quarters on a regular basis, they dryers do not heat well and you have to end up drying your clothes 2-3 times for them to get dry. Also, the washers are only 1/2 sized basins so, if you want to wash bedding you have to go elsewhere. Do not be charmed by the ducks and geese, they are cute at first but get old very quickly. The honk at all hours of the day and night and are very loud. It is almost a nightly thing to have them honk at 2 & 3 in the morning. Bird dropping are everywhere. Watch out for you cars if you do not park under the covered parking. The birds are not afraid to camp out on your car and leave their mark. Cobble Creek does not clean up after the birds often enough about the only time I noticed them spraying down the sidewalks is when owners from back east came into town. The feed the put out for the ducks/geese attracts local pigeons too! Cobble Creek has some kind of pest control service the set up appointments once a month for those who request it, which made me think they do have bug problems etc... I however, never noticed this being problem, but I was on the top floor. They are very particular about what can and cannot be placed on the porches, and fine you as the see fit. Parking especially in the back of the complex is crowded. They give everyone one covered parking stall, Which is standard, but in the back they do not have enough additional parking for those with more then 1 car. Our parking stall was very often filled by strange cars. Management said the could only tow the strange car if it was in our stall for 48 hours or more, they said we were welcome to call and have it towed ourselves? They claim they have to give "sufficient" notice before entering your apartment, which basically means they post a note on your door right before the office closes saying they will be entering the next day and you are not needed to be their when they come and due to time notice no direct time appointments can be made for this reason. The office closes at 8 o'clock which means sometimes you do not get the note until the next morning on your way to work, and then they come in that day while your gone - "sufficient" to them means less then 24 hours. Also, when we gave notice to leave the complex (keep in mind they require a 60 day notice and will charge you for the full 60 days) 2 weeks before we where gone they wanted to come into our unit and start evaluating and making repairs for the next people moving in. So, much for paying the 60 days the push you out sooner but still require you to pay. However, My husband & I tried to tolerate all of these problems and stick out or lease, but the discriminating attitude of the management staff, forced us to leave. I have a medical dog, which took weeks from their office back East to approve with all my dogs medical papers etc... We had to live here the first month or so, without the dog because it took that long to get approved. Before our dog was brought on property I noticed someone was picking up after a dog and called the office because I didn't want problems when my dog was approved. Within the hour (no joke) my dog was brought on property management called me saying neighbors had been complaining about us not cleaning up after our dog. I told them our dog just barely got here and hasn't even been outside yet and to please check the note in our file that I too made the same complaint a week ago. Well, all our neighbors knew about our dog, and one neighbor complained about our dog barking, and if my dog was a real problem I would be understanding, but these complaints would come in when our dog wasn't home, for example we where at the vet until noon on Sat. and the office called and said we need to quiet our dog that had been barking non-stop for over 2 hours, My husband told them, impossible we just came back from the vet 5 min. ago and could bring in the bill to show them. These false complaints became so bad they posted an eviction warning on our door stating if we get one more complaint (real or not) we would be evicted. My husband then tried calling the office (Any time you call and want to speak to the manager he/she is never their supposedly; Later we learned who the manager was and they were the one telling us the manager was never in hmmm...) and tried to speak to the manager who wasn't in and spoke to the person handling the complaints. She told him quote, "We were not really going to really evict you we just wanted you to take the complaints seriously" and further reading about the complaints, she then told us she'd look into them more, and some did seem false and it is just the one neighbor complaining. However, false eviction threats are not something a company should do- At this point we wanted out, we where tired of the unprofessional management, and all the stress they had been causing. Was their eviction threat real or not we didn't want to find out?!? We tried to negotiate, with the office in coming to a settlement or a compromise, especially with all these false eviction threats, however, it was all to no avail, they still charged us $1500.00 to break the lease and required 60 days notice which is an addition 2 months rent. So, basically 4 months rent to break the lease. However, we could leave after 30 days and if the "happen" to rent out our unit the would not charge us the last months rent - we were not going to believe this after all the crap from their company - who is to say they don't rent it out and then still charge you (double money for them), because they require the keys to be turned in after 30 days to make this possible. Also, they do come in to evaluate and start prepping for the next people two weeks before you have to turn in the keys, their subtle way of trying to force people out, early to collect double rent. Also, do not lose a key most places charge $5-$20 dollars for replacement key they charge $40.00 - I would not recommend Cobble Creek to anyone! Too old for what you pay, and not worth the problems. I agree, with the other comments saying the positive statements are written by the staff themselves. Glad to be gone!