Kensington West Apartments

Hands down the worst place I’ve ever lived. I lived here back in 2011. At first glance the apartments seemed clean and well maintained, but live here a couple months and you will quickly pick up on all of the miss-​managed issues these apartments have.
First, my ceiling in my living room leaked the whole time I lived there. I was in the unit for a month before it ever rained and when it did I was in for a surprise. It took a whole month of me non-​stop harassing management to send someone out to fix the leak, and when they did they only had maintenance cut out the damaged drywall from the ceiling and patch it, they did not ever actually fix the leak. It leaked several more times in the year I lived here and their only solution was to keep patching the damaged ceiling. By the time I left you could easily see damp seams in the drywall where water was making its way back in. I’m sure whoever is living in this unit now is still dealing with this problem.
As you can see from a few of the previous Unilocal reviews here, Kensington is not new to water problems. Many ceilings in a lot of the units leak. I also had a downstairs neighbor tell me that condensation from pipes in the walls was causing damage and mold issues in their unit which the management basically shrugged their shoulders at.
Without a doubt though, the worst apartment units here have to be the first floor ones. The first floor units are half underground, and I know for a fact the tenants that lived in two of the units under mine were constantly dealing with flooding. Those units are a total nightmare, and in the year I lived their I had neighbors in those units TWICE have to break their lease because of the constant flooding and Kensington just not giving a flying flip about it.
On top of all of this KW wanted to raise my rent by $ 100 a month the next year. Hahaha, no. You guys can keep your indoor swimming pool units.
I just wanted to add that although this review is coming years after I lived here, I got curious about KW and looked them up on Unilocal.When I saw newer reviews here with similar issues I decided I should point out that I lived here four whole years ago and that KW obviously isn’t making any sort of effort to improve their standards or change their ways.

Apartment was flooded again. Worst management ever! No permanent solution is being provided to prevent flooding.

DO NOT RENT from Kensington West Apartments. The office staff are rarely around and when they are I found them to be persistently hot headed, hard to deal with and dismissive.
When I first moved in I was given my address which I then gave to the Electric Company. The Electric Company had trouble determining which address was mine and asked me to call the office to make sure that I hadn’t written anything down incorrectly. When I called, I asked the lady who answered the phone to verify and explain the letter in my address to make sure that I understood. She didn’t wait for my sentence to finish before she was very hot, hostile and aggressive. She accused me of writing down the wrong address, which I didn’t. She became angry and unmanageable when I asked her to clarify what the E meant, whether it was a building or a specific apartment (I had not moved in yet, I didn’t know). She ranted and raved about how it refers to a specific apartment, which it does but an explanation loses its luster when it’s screamed at you. She went on and on about how it was the Electric companies fault, but I had only asked her to explain the address and verify it. No one was pointing fingers but her.
Shortly after moving in, there was charge that I needed to pay. I called and gave the girl who answered the phone my card number to pay for the charge. She calls me back, angry, going on and on about how the card doesn’t work and that I need to call my bank. I said to her that I had used my card that morning and that it had worked fine. She insisted that the card wasn’t working, that she had tried it several times and that I needed to either call my bank of give her another card. She was aggressive all through this process as though I had personally offended her. This bill was current and I had been more than happy to comply when asked about it. I thought, maybe something happened since my morning coffee and decided to listen through her exasperated crossness and called my bank. It’s 2014, your bank can tell you specifically why a transaction has or has not happened most of the time, especially when they are routine transactions. The lady at the bank, who was incredibly pleasant, explained that the girl had tried it once and had entered in the incorrect expiration date. I called her back and told her that and she refused to accept it. She argued back and forth that she had tried it many times and that she had entered the correct expiration date. Miraculously, however, when I convinced her to try it one more time, it worked.
One time I can home from work and my front door was wide open. Nothing was stolen but I had not put in a maintenance request so I called the office. They told me that the people below me had put in a request and that was why maintenance had been in my apartment. That is all fine and good, except they left my front door open and no one informed me. When I pointed out that anyone could have walked right in and stolen anything and not left so much as a fingerprint behind, the lady on the phone was totally dismissive and indifferent.
Any time you ask them a question about why something is the way that it is or why something costs what it costs you never receive an answer, you only hear, «That’s corporate policy,» «Sorry, thats the corporate policy.»
They take zero responsibility for anything that happens on the premises. It is either your fault or it is corporate policy. There were dozens and dozens of times that it took me two days to get them on the phone. Good luck if you have a package.
Moving out was no different. I am not a partier. I had people over from time to time but for the most part it was me and fiancé. The place is too small to entertain. When we moved out it happened to coincide with my fiancé ‘s bridal shower and we had all of our mothers and grandmothers around wanting to lend a hand. We cleaned that place from head to toe. We filled in the holes from pictures in the walls. The place looked better than it did the day we moved in. When I called to ask about my deposit, they managed to tell me that I owed them another $ 90 because the carpet would have to be replaced and that the bathroom and fan were dirty. They weren’t. They were spotless. It is just a different form of thievery. This place will steal right out of your pockets if you let them.
The apartments are terrible. You can hear everything that every neighbor is doing or saying. Our bathroom had a dip in the sink counter that was significant (the apathetic staff said they couldn’t replace it). The apartments are small and cramped and then to get anything you have a nice left onto Manchester road.
Rent from anywhere other than this place.

My husband and I moved from Wisconsin to Missouri and this was our first apartment. We were attracted to the price and the amount of space and the management was initially friendly and helpful. However, once we moved in my husband started having severe allergic reactions. We brought this issue up to the management and they offered to have the carpets cleaned. Once that was complete my husband still was having severe reactions. We brought it up again to the management and they stated there was nothing they could do. In fact, when approaching management in person, we sat in the waiting room and listened as the manager yelled at her assistant that there was nothing more she would be doing for us. She actually did not come out of her office to even meet with us. We are very nice people so we were floored. We thanked the nice assistant and left.
So we hired a private mold inspector to come in and assess the apartment. He took multiple samples and returned a couple of days later to reveal the apartment was infested with mold in the carpeting and the walls from repeat water damage. We submitted the report with these findings to the management as well as the housing authority and stated we would like to move out immediately or they would be facing legal action. We’ve never had to threaten to sue anyone in our lives!
Only after legal action was threatened did they let us break our lease and allowed us 10 days to find a new apartment. I would never recommend this apartment to anyone. On top of the mold and mildew disaster there were spiders constantly both inside and outside of the apartment and the community laundromat was completely filthy.
I am a very forgiving person but I would never recommend this place to anyone. Save yourself your health and well-​being and find a cleaner, safer and friendlier place.
P. S. Forgot to mention this when I did this review years earlier. They have ceramic bathtubs in the apartments that are extremely dangerous. I slipped in the shower and hit my head on the side of the tub and wound up with a nasty concussion. Six years later, I still have side effects from this concussion. They are extremely lucky we didn’t sue them.

Terrible place to live! Shauna, apt manager, refused to have a meeting with me after my dog was accused of biting another neighbor’s dog. I not only had witnesses, my neighbor tried to get me to pay her vet and shot bill after I discovered she lied and never even had the vet appointment. I tried telling this to Kensington office and still they refused to have a meeting with me. Within four days of the «bite» Kensington said they refused the meeting because since the «incident» 4 calls had been made regarding my pet feces not being picked up-​unrelated to the bite incident. This obviously was my neighbor’s sneaky way of trying to make trouble for me. Still, no meeting to hear my side from Kensington. The next day, my dogs got evicted-​only I am still on the lease. My dogs are my KIDS. So now we have no where to go. What a bunch of crap! NEVER AGAIN DON’T RENT FROM HERE. My boyfriend lived here and they kept accusing him of smoking and leaving cig butts-​he doesn’t even smoke. They are horrible.

Someone broke into our apartment while we lived there. He had a key and came straight into my room and started going through my things. He did not know I was there and I calmly made my presence known and he left quickly. Luckily, he was only coming for my jewelry.
After the police came and investigated, my roommate and I decided to move out immediately. After telling the apt office about it, we had to wait 2 days until they could change our lock. They did not consider it an emergency.
In light of these events, we wanted to break the lease and move out sooner than later. They didn’t work with us on that and never offered to do anything else, safety or monetary wise. Everyone in the leasing office had the «I don’t really care that someone broke into your apartment» attitude.
I have told numerous college students and clients at my business who frequently are relocating to the area not to waste their time with this complex.

I lived there for almost 4 years. A pleasant experience until they tried to screw me when I was leaving.
When it was time to renew my lease for another year, I brought the new lease back to them (in the office) and told them that I needed a new one for only 7 months because I was moving in 7 MONTHS. So, they drew up a new lease agreement. At the end of May/​beinning of June I moved out and they said they didn’t know I was leaving because I didn’t give them «one month written notice» and, per the contract, I was automatically renewed for another year!!! They took June’s rent out of my bank account automatically even though I was not living there and I did not authorize it. Now they are trying to get an additional thousands of dollars out of me.
I live in NJ/​NY and am still dealing with these winners.
Is this the kind of place you want to live?
My brother lives in Creve Coeur at Olive and 270. Great location, awesome staff, great apts, and the rent is LOW! Check them out; Camden Apts, I think.
Don’t settle for Kensington West; there’s better places out there.

This was the first home my fiancé and I shared, here at Kensington West Apartments. The rooms were large and featured high ceilings with crown moldings. The appliances were old and faulty, but maintenance was always happy to fix them. What was most outstanding was the property manager, Shauna. That lady could remember everyone’s name. Two months after we moved in, I bumped into her on the sidewalk and she knew exactly who I was. I hadn’t seen her since we signed the papers! It just really made me feel at home. Another plus was that you could have your rent taken straight out of your account, therefore avoiding any late rent checks.
Ok, now on to the bad. We lived on the wooded side of the complex. This was great for shade, but we had a big problem with brown recluse spiders. Kensington went above and beyond to try and fix the problem, even calling us repeatedly to make sure everything was ok. These people really care. The only other bad thing I can say about them is that their dryers usually don’t work, but I think that is due to abuse by the other occupants.