Crystal Bay

If I could give this place ZERO stars I would. Honestly this place was nice back in the fall of 2014. Since then it has gone to hell. The trash is constantly spilling into the parking lot. There is gun fire on a weekly basis close enough to wake me from a dead sleep. There is sludge growing in the sink drain, the shower head turns pink after a month, the water comes out a milky color. The outlets are loose and don’t hold a plug. The oven is slightly off balance so everything leans to the left. This place has changed owners since 2014 and the new «manager» Pheonix could care less about her tenants. She is quick to dismiss you with a condescending attitude. When you ask for her boss or her manager she gives you some lady named Monica who has no idea what you are talking about. We are getting out of here. I recommend you find somewhere else to live.

This place is real shit hole. We’ve had a mold issue for at least 6 months. The maintenance guy even told us that it’s because the building is old and the walls need replacing. On top of that, I can hear the lady upstairs get it on once a week and it wakes up my toddler! The building recently was sold to another party and the new manager they have barely speaks English. My neighbors and I have asked her to replace the blown out bulb by the stairs because we all have small children. It’s been 2 weeks and it’s still not replaced. And when she refused to take a complaint down from me, I asked for her managers number. Her response? I’m the manager. I told her I wanted HER manager. She refused to give me the information and HUNG UP on me.

When I first moved to these apartments a year ago they were great. I love the area and it is close to the water, lots of parking and a small community. Maintenance guy was super nice and always fixed things quickly. The bad things are the bathroom molds really easily, they have a gym with «free wifi» but you are never able to connect to it. There have now been THREE different managers since I have been here a year. My lease is up this month and received no notice about it. I went into ask the manager if my lease was up next month and she told me it was up this month and that I had received a letter on my door last month. I told her I had no notice on my door, she handed me a piece of paper that said my rent was going up from $ 888 to $ 1066 a month. She told me I had to sign a new lease at that price within four days or find another place to live. I asked for an extension because I never received that notice and she said she would get back to me. I had not heard from her in 2 days so I went in again with only 2 days left to sign a new lease and she told me she had not heard from her manager. I frantically found another apartment to move to because I had no choice, I had no place to live and I could not afford the new price of the apartment. I gave her my notice four days after the date I was suppose to sign the new lease and she told me I now owe for another month because I did not give notice in time. This new price for one month in my apartment was $ 1333. This apartment does not follow the law and how to treat tenants. I have been a model tenant and always paid rent on time and never complained and now this is how they are treating me. This is wrong and I would not rent from them if this is how they treat the people renting out their dated apartments.

We were looking for a new apartment and we came here a few months ago to do a walk through because the place looked nice online but the apartments and grounds were nothing like the pictures. They were run down, unkept, you could tell that there were mold issues. I didn’t get a good vibe from the management office either. It just wasn’t worth being tied to a lease living in an apartment that’s not even kept up to code. My fiancé is a commercial real estate manager and he said that place is just waiting for a lawsuit to happen. We found such an amazing and affordable apartment in the area of the landing in Renton. We are grateful we listened to our intuition.

I lived at Crystal Bay for a year and a half before moving back to Southern California and loved it. The complex is clean and very quiet, I can only recall one time where noise was an issue late at night, and the Des Moines police department handled that very quickly. The staff was great, Angela and Lindsay in the office were always very nice and polite when I would call or come in, and the few maintenance issues I had we handled very quickly and to my satisfaction.
If I didn’t move back to SoCal I would still be there and recommending it to my friends. Very affordable and a very nice place to live with close access to the freeway, waterfront and many shopping centers and hole in the wall places.

I don’t know why Unilocal seems to think my apartment community is closed, as Crystal Bay is in a nice quiet location. Centrally located in Des Moines. Close to the water, freeway and shopping. Angela the property manager is great. So is Phi the maintenance guy. I really like living here and have recommended it to a few of my friends. This definitely seemed like the best option in the area when I was shopping for an apartment… and still seems to be the best choice. I highly recommend.