Toscana Apartments

It is so hilarious to see the nasty and dishonest reviews about this apartment complex on here. Countless complaints about the most petty and random things. Lol. There are not infestations, it does not constantly smell like weed, and MAYBE every once and awhile people will leave their trash close to the shoot or around it but not IN it because they get full quick. Yes there isn’t a lot of guest parking but what do you expect? They don’t build the parking structures for you and a million friends it’s parking for people who live here. Get over it! Everyone has problems. Not EVERYTHING can be perfect. There are thousands and thousands of tenants living here. My finance & I have lived here for a year now, and we absolutely love it. The staff is sweet and there always to help. When we first moved in we were helped by the nicest man ever named Sam who is still very helpful and involved with everything we need here. From picking up packages, info in emails and any questions we ever have. The rent is an extremely good price and the apartments have good footage for Irvine. Of course on the weekends it can be a little loud, it’s the weekend. If you are an older person who doesn’t like being around collage kids I suggest not moving here. It is close to UCI campus. But there also isn’t a lot of bad coming from being around them either. Plenty of people I have talked to have lived here for 5 plus years and love it. I highly recommend this apartment complex. We will be living here for more years to come.

I try to give every apartment complex, restaurant and business the benefit of the doubt. After reading the year’s of crappy reviews of the Toscanas I was hesitant to move in to this complex but after meeting the friendly management staff decided to ignore the warnings.
i’ve lived at the Toscana’s for one year and can say, without a doubt, that this is the absolute worst complex that I have ever lived in (including my college dorms). The neighbors are filthy and leave trash, include bloody meat products, lying on the ground outside elevators b/​c they’re too lazy to through their garbage down the trash chutes. Management has been informed of this numerous times and nothing has been done to resolve the issue.
In addition to the unsanitary living conditions are the despicable college student littered throughout each complex. Every tower has their own unique group of loud, drunk and obnoxious tenants who could care less how loud they are on any week night, at any time. Smoking pot on balconies is evidently legal here as many of the tenants do.
Lastly the security staff does didly squat. Numerous noise, theft and emergency calls have been made by myself and my neighbors directly next door. The security staff simply turns their cell phone off at night so that you have to call 911 to get support.
This place is a joke. Management doesn’t resolve anything but cashing your monthly payment and the majority of the tenants are filthy. If you have to move to this neck of the woods do yourself a favor and find a different complex. Spend $ 20 – 500 extra a month to live anywhere but here.

I’ve been at Toscana for almost 6 years and will be moving out within the next couple of months. There’s a few pros and cons I can share regarding my time here.
Pros:
Cleanliness — toscana has been, by far, one of the cleanest apartment complexes I’ve been in and I have moved around several times. They consistently have maintenance cleaning up trash and cleaning the elevators and laundry rooms. Sure, sometimes you’ll get dirty people leaving their crap strewn everywhere but that’s their own fault (because they’re gross and need to grow up) and normally it’s taken care of quickly.
Friendly Service staff — the maintenance people are very nice and prompt. Always helpful and wave at me and my fiancé whenever we see them.
Online services — paying your rent or requesting service online is awesome. It’s very convenient and makes life ten times easier when you have odd work hours with very little time to go to the office when they are open.
Location — were in Irvine for heavens sake. I know there are reviews talking about safety and while, yes, there were cars and mailboxes vandalized, I am not afraid to walk around at night (unlike some places I’ve been in). Plus you’re close to several shopping centers and the freeway.
Cons:
Parking — yes, parking is atrocious here but believe it or not it has gotten better. When I first moved in years ago there was quite literally no parking. Not even the list they put up at night. So yes, parking does still suck but at least they have more available spaces. Although, I do agree, it would be nice if they could post the list online.
Noise — to be fair, most of the time it’s very quite around here. However, there are the occasional Friday and Saturday nights where people will be having parties and their wasted friends will hang out in the couldesac and be screaming and laughing and you will hear every. Word. They. Say. Its really annoying for the rest of us who have to work at 5am the next morning. It would be nice if security could come along and tell them to go away.
Office staff — The woman that helped us move in was amazing, even after we had signed the lease and we were settled, but she no longer works there. Since then we’ve maybe had one or two people who’ve been nice but a majority of the time I have had some issues with the others. We’re pretty quite tenants, and sure maybe we’ve been late a few times with rent, but we’ve never had complaints against us or been difficult and yet when I do have the rare instance I need to call to ask a question it seems like I’m an inconvenience and they speak to me a little rudely. I’m in customers service too, I know how annoying customers are and I can only imagine how much worse tenants can be but still, before you sound annoyed with me remember, I do make sacrifices in order to pay rent to live here — and it’s not chump change — so I think I deserve to be greeted nicely. And if I am a douche then by all means, I deserve your rudeness but I’d like to think I’ve always been really nice.
These are just a few things. Again, all around toscana has been great and I am very lucky I could afford to live here for as long as I could.

There are so many problems with this apartment community. I am mentioning just a few here:
1) Mailbox Theft: during last year we have received 4 – 5 emails from the manager saying that the mailboxes got broken into. I lost two of the Holiday gifts I bought for my friends because of this issue. and of course they do this during holidays when people are waiting for gifts. So for about two months we had to drive 20 minutes each week to get our mail from the post office.
2) Guest Parking: guest parking is a joke here. I could never had friends come over, they had to park in the close shopping plazas and walk to my place. when you complain about it to the office, they will tell you that you can rent a reserved parking for $ 75 per month! why would somebody do that! $ 75?! half of these reserved parking are empty because there are more reserved parking that guest parking and nobody would pay $ 75 for that.
3) Dirty: this complex is dirty. there is always water coming out of the laundry room, the trash is all over, you can see cigarette butts everywhere.
4) Deposit: Do not expect to receive even half of your deposit back. When I moved out my apartment was in the best condition, I cleaned the carpet, the kitchen and bathroom. everything was super clean. They charged me around $ 200 for carpet cleaning, wall painting and housekeeping! they did a pre inspection two weeks before my move out date. I emailed them 3 times and asked them how did it go and they did not respond to my emails. I went to the office and asked them in person, they told me everything went well and I don’t need to be worry about it! and then the sent me back only one third of my deposit!
5) The office staff: they seem nice at first, but they never respond to your emails and requests. Once I went to the office and asked one of the staff that I am waiting for the manager to respond to my email. event after that, she did not respond to me!
There were two main reason why I choose Toscana at first, one because of the location which is close to UCI, shopping plazas, airport and my work. Second because the rent amount was around $ 50 cheaper than other options. However it is NOT worth it. the utilities are more expensive and you can not reduce it by saving. I could have had much better experience in any other place in Irvine. and now that they increase the prices this year, it not even cheaper.

Really nice place. Loads of great amenities. Maintenance staff and office staff are really helpful and prompt. Beats any Irvine Company Apartment at a similar price point.

ZERO FOR LEASING OFFICE
Called and made an appointment for viewing for Saturday 1:00pm. Arrived 10 minutes prior, only to find a window sign that posted back at 1:30pm. Waited around for 20 minutes, hoping to catch someone. Finally-​SAM came back– I mentioned that I had an appointment scheduled and he just rushed quickly through the doors and said they were closed for lunch. Locked the doors behind and didn’t even allow me to wait inside even though they had already missed my appointment time! Lourdes emailed me later saying the call center who makes appointments doesn’t know their schedule but they take lunch from 12:30 — 1:30. I agreed to be back the next day (Sunday) at 1:35pm with James, who got CC’d on our emails. I get an email from James at 12:30 the next day asking if i’d be available to take a tour Monday at 10:00am. THIS WAS ONE HOUR BEFORE MY SCHEDULED APPOINTMENT TIME! I e-​mailed back immediately and asked him to call me right away. I show up at my scheduled appointment time (that i had made through their office staff vs. the call center) only to find a sign posted that they’d be back at 1:45 p.m. Waited til 2:00 p.m. without anyone showing up. Others stopping by had the same issues. I got an e-​mail later that day asking when I’d like to come for a tour. NO APOLOGIES-​NOTHING. I’ve never dealt with a more unprofessional staff. I spoke with tenants who told me that the staff is NEVER there. Despite the terrible reviews on here-​I STILL decided to see it for myself. PROSPECTS-don’t waste your weekend like I did! Should you decide to ignore all these warnings posted here-​I suggest you take your luck just dropping by during the middle of the week no where near a reasonable lunch hour-​despite posted signage. They will not be back in the office at those times.

My experience with Toscana was pretty positive. The apartments were reasonably priced, the gym was ok, and the staff overall were pretty good — especially Sam. There was some occasional noise from Jamboree road, but it wasn’t terrible. There were occasionally spiders and stuff, but the apartment was across from a massive (and awesome) nature preserve. Guest parking does suck though.

Super lazy staff!!!
There is no guest parking. There are supposed to «post» the available spots every night. It took me a month to realize that they post it 1990 style on the office door and not online. And they are complaining that it is so difficult to find the available spots and post them!!! How is that possible? You make people sign a load of paperwork before moving in so you know which spot is taken and which one is not. I don’t think they have heard of Excel and how they can filter the data!!!
Also this is not the safest place. The garage door was broken and left open for an extended amount of time and now the entrance door does not close properly and anyone can enter the property!

Pros: Relatively low price for Irvine.
It’s within biking/​walking distance of UCI and right next to the marsh and arboretum.
The microwave stopped working and they replaced it within 2 days with a brand new one.
Cons: They mow/​leaf-​blow at 8am once a week.
They are CONSTANTLY checking the fire alarms, sometimes you’re notified of the testing; other times, you and all of your neighbors are standing outside wondering whether it’s another false alarm or if you should be running and salvaging what you can.
Guest parking is a nightmare. They give one guest pass per apartment and sometimes list spaces that are open. I had a friend come over and get towed from a spot that Toscana had on this list. They did own up to this mistake and pay him the towing expense which was nice; but it should’ve been avoided entirely.
Getting anything done at the leasing office is a hassle. Packages end up here most of the time and it seemed like every other time I went to pickup a package, a «We’ll be back at…» sign was there. I’d go back 15 – 30 minutes after their allotted time and the sign would still be there, unchanged.
The laundry facilities always had broken machines.
Our fridge leaked constantly and they «fixed» it twice but it never stopped.
Aside from these minor annoyances, living at Toscana is perfectly tolerable. It’s the nightmare I went through upon move out that has me writing this review. I lived at Toscana for two years, and as expected, despite my best efforts, there was some wear and tear to the pristine white carpet and paint. Anticipating the move, I went to the leasing office and found out the paint’s brand and exact color and repainted the walls. I also had the carpet cleaned, but accepted that the kitchen would likely not be up to their standards of cleanliness unless they did it. An inspection is done two weeks before your lease expires where they send someone to examine the apartment and provide you with a list of things that need to be done and the cost they’ll charge you to do them. We were told that the kitchen and one of the bathrooms needed to be cleaned.
However, shortly after move out my roommates and I were notified of the cost of expenses which sucked our security deposit dry, and stated that we now owed them a large sum of money, and had a month to pay it off.
We all attempted to get ahold of someone, anyone, at the leasing office but no one ever replied to our voicemails/​emails. About a week later we received an outline stating that we’d been charged for repainting labor (like $ 300 for the labor), paint, cleaning, and carpet cleaning AND then carpet replacement! The carpet was fine! And why did they clean it only to replace it?! I wanted proof that it had been cleaned! (which they didn’t supply)
They provided a description of carpet flaws and stated that they had pictures that would be uploaded to the website. The carpet flaws stated that there was a «bleach stain» in the living room carpet, (Why? How? I have no clue.) and there were two carpet pictures from the living room on the website. So you’d assume they’d replace the living room carpet, which would be understandable. INSTEAD THEY CHARGED US TO REPLACE THE CARPET IN THE WHOLE APARTMENT. Also, no pictures of the paint at all. Of course, we had some questions and it had taken them three weeks to upload the pictures. We were now getting late charge threats. In the end, they told us they’d give us a whopping 15% discount or we’d have to take them to court. So, we paid them and now I’m bitter with how poorly everything was handled and the time management for work orders and uploading the pictures.

ZERO STARS! NO GUEST PARKING! MAILBOX THEFT, CAR BREAK-​INS and BROKEN ELEVATORS FOR OVER A MONTH! Does this sound «Luxury» to You???
My biggest complaint is the GUEST PARKING situation. Toscana probably has 400 units in this development. There are literally FIVE guest parking spaces per building! Also, your guest has to place a plastic placard on their rearview mirror or they WILL get towed! (This happened to me). it was $ 400 to get my car out, and they call the towing company VERY fast, AND often! (it’s as if they were getting a cut of the towing costs or something?) in addition, these guest parking spaces are ALWAYS full, leaving your guests (OR ROOM MATE) to park in the next building over, or on the street (but the street parking is limited hours as well). There are NO other parking lots, or neighborhood streets to park on. In an irritating and INCONVENIENT attempt to alleviate the problem, they post any available unit’s (vacant) parking spots on a piece of paper and tape them to the leasing office door at 6pm every night. (Ummmm, Have you guys heard of this thing called the internet?) I used to have to leave my car running in the red zone, jump out, run to the door to view the available spots and then hop back in my car and make a mad-​dash over to the parking space and try to get it before the 6 people behind me get it! However, it’s just big joke, b/​c they are almost always taken by 7 p.m. SOMETIMES, if you’re lucky, your boyfriend/​girlfriend, or room mate may be kind enough to drive to the office RIGHT AT 6PM-​and take a PICTURE of the available parking spot numbers and send it to you as soon as it’s posted so that hopefully you can beat others to it! (Literally, this is the drill folks, we see other renters do it daily!).
What about weekend visitors who want to stay a few days? Or what if you’re having multiple guests come over in one day? Each apartment only gets ONE guest placard! Why not just get two guest passes with your unit, you ask? Oh no! This is not allowed! That’s right, if your girlfriend, and perhaps your parents, all want to come visit you on the same day, and you don’t have enough guest passes for Two Vehicles, the management office will NOT give you an additional pass for the day! They will tell you «One guest pass per unit!» and there’s NO solution. You can’t purchase more, so don’t even think about it!
In addition, over the holiday season the mailboxes were broken into and so were several cars, including ours! Packages were stolen from mailboxes, and porches for about 4 weeks. Management did NOTHING! They told us to get our mail daily so no one would steal it. (They eventually installed more lighting in the parking garage, but do you think more lighting is going to help those people who got their bills and perhaps identities stolen from the mailboxes? No they will not! Besides, the lights are ugly and dim, and they flicker. So now the parking garage looks extra creepy. Anyways, they should have installed security cameras near the mailboxes and also in the parking garages. They do have security guards asking around at night sometimes, so they could’ve at LEAST hired a temporary security guard to stand/​sit in the parking garage at night during this high theft season.
Another irritating thing is the dog situation. The office will tell you that there are no pets allowed. Especially dogs. b/​c NO dogs are permitted within 500 feet of the «protected reservoir» located just behind the apartment complex, However, EVERYONE has a dog or a cat in this building! You will see people walking their dogs all the time! Management will lie to you and tell you these people «must be living someplace else», and that «many people like to bring their dogs over here and walk them on our grounds because of all the greenery». They ALL must be service dogs… BTW, Watermark, Avenue One, and Park Plaza ALL ALLOW DOGS and these buildings are all adjacent to Toscana.
There are many reasons not to live here, these examples are some of the most frustrating. These are overpriced apartments that just do not compare to what you can get in a newer building for the same price or close to it.

Beautiful and clean apartment homes… Had a pleasant stay! all the people were nice!! Nice and prompt services;beautiful and clean surroundings! just loved the place !! would highly recommend living here! i miss my stay at toscana. Great location too!
gym was terrific!!!

The place looks nice from the outside but appliances, sinks, tubs etc are outdated. Management doesn’t seem to be very helpful or welcoming. I didn’t know that signing on as a NEW tenant onto an existing lease means no customer service or help. I guess you have to be signing a brand new lease to get the nice welcomes. I do not recommend living here.

If I could give no stars, I would!!!
Be very very careful before leasing with Toscana. The office staff is a literal nightmare, spiders constantly in the apartments, there is NEVER guest parking, theft is a reoccurring issue and you get emails on a daily basis telling you: the water will be shut off today, garage x is flooded, this elevator is down. always something! I have had two MAJOR negative experiences with them and ultimately decided it was best to leave! They are really lucky I did not take legal action against them.
I would suggest paying a little bit more and going with Irvine Company. I have since relocated and am extremely happy! Clean, friendly, happy environment. ahh :)
Truth be told, I work in a business where people ask me daily — Where do you get your hair done? Where do you get your car washed? Where do you rent? I will never recommend Toscana to anyone ever!
You have been warned!

I LOATHE living at Toscana.
1. Disgusting spiders and other vermin will intrude your home on a weekly basis. I wouldn’t mind much if the bugs were tiny, but these things are HUMONGOUS. We also had a case of the bed bugs somewhere in our complex.
2. The office is TERRIBLE with giving notice on when the exterminators are going to come. My roommates and I have been kicked out of our apartment at 8am without prior notice at least three times during our residency.
3. There’s always some kind of construction that requires water to be shut off for an entire day (sometimes shorter). But nonetheless a HUGE inconvenience.
4. It’s not that safe. We have had people break into our mailboxes twice, and the gates are left open sometimes.

After three pleasant years in Toscana, I am finally on the fence about renewing my lease. With the annual rent increases, Toscana’s prices aren’t the bargain they used to be. The nearby upscale developments cost only a little more, and it’s hard not to notice just how much more updated they look.
But, looking back, my experience with Toscana has been very positive! All these apartment reviews seem like they were written by angry tenants after something blew up in their faces (because, why bother venting when everything’s OK?)… I’ll keep mine level-​headed.
Pros:
— LOCATION. Close to the 405, 55, UC Irvine, Corona del Mar… pretty hard to beat
— $ 100-​$ 300 cheaper than the competition
— Leasing office: As others mentioned, Sam and Lourdes are super reliable and THE go-​to people
— Maintenance: Quick response and friendly
— Gym/​pool/​courts: Free, well maintained, generally not crowded. Fairly certain all the non-​Toscana people in the area know the gate code to the tennis courts, by the way
Cons:
— BREAK-​INS. Mailboxes and cars were broken into THREE times since Christmas. No cameras, and the on-​site security is never there when it happens
— Some idiot keeps destroying the outside lock on the building gates, and I think maintenance got fed up and no longer wants to deal
— UCI undergrads: Parties, cellphones, difficult breakups, pot. Just expect it
— DATED APPLIANCES. No in-​unit W/​D, plus my dishwasher and stove are really old. Burners broke again after the second repair, and the hands on the analog stove top timer are dead. Some apartments have updated appliances, which would totally be an incentive for me to stay :/​
No one should blame Toscana for theft and noisy neighbors, and rest assured the staff are working hard to address these issues! In the end, I got what I paid for and have been happy about it… until now, when rent became just pricey enough that I’m willing to pay a bit more for a nicer apartment. Overall, Toscana makes a comfortable home for those looking to save, and the perks, for the most part, outweigh the setbacks.

I have lived at Toscana for 11 months.
PROS:
When my roommates and I moved in everyone in the leasing office was nice and helpful. The pool and location is awesome especially since it’s 1 mile from UCI and about a mile and a half from the 405 freeway. Pools are usually clean.
The layouts are nice and big, fourth floors get a fire place.
You can pay your rent online and request service stuff online as well which is very handy.
Price is good compared to surrounding apartment communities.
CONS:
Parking is never an option, they really need to figure out a better situation. A lot of residents (including myself) are students and have 4 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment… Who all have cars. They offer extra parking but at $ 75 a spot, per month!
It is NOT a smoke free community so when having your windows open for a nice breeze you constantly get a smoke breeze in your apartment.
Laundry facilities are located evenly through each building which is really handy although they only have 1 location where you can reload your laundry card — which is down by the leasing office in the gym, which is NOT convenient.
The gym is nice, pretty standard. Although tenants never clean the machines after using so that’s pretty gross. But also workers never refill the paper towels in the gym! The bathrooms surrounding the gym are very nice and always clean though!
It’s generally quiet although there have been more times than once that you hear loud music and people screaming off their balconies in different languages (both during day time hours AND during wee hours of the night).
The elevators CONSTANTLY stop working. And the stairwells are on opposite sides of the building.
Outdated kitchens

Everyone complains about the parking, but you know what you are signing up for so stop your complaining.
However, what you do not sign up for is the horrible office staff. It is almost impossible to get the office staff to pick up the phone and they DO NOT return messages no matter how long you wait for them to. They also do not like to return a call they promise to or submit your requests for maintenance.
Also, someone broke into my integra. They shattered the window and raided the car. You would think management would spend a couple extra bucks and put in some security cameras, but you would think wrong.

Toscana Apartments look decent from the outside. But inside it’s dirty and underwhelming. It seems like the common places haven’t been cleaned in ages. The apartments are OK although the quality varies a lot. For example on most balconies you won’t have a single ray of sunshine. The quality of the walls seem low and you can easily hear your neighbors. The parking lot is ok. The spa is open until 11pm which is nice but it’s also quite unkempt and not very clean. In the end Toscana Apartments is not a terrible place. It’s all in all a decently placed building if you want to reach UCI by bike. You can live here for a bunch of months. I just don’t wish you to die here.
P. S.: if you are deciding to come here with UCI’s International programs reconsider it. Toscana Apartments is not hell but UCI seriously makes you overpay for it.

I would give them ZERO star if I could. First of all, people who work in the leasing office are not helpful at all. They are MEAN and SHADY! They just somehow make your life harder. And guess what, they even watch your behaviors secretly! They just watch you and wait for you to make mistakes and «judge» you. How shady was it? Second, I lost many of my packages since I moved here. I don’t know what is wrong with the address but I am sure I typed it correctly. Third, the trash room is always smelly. There are more problems that I can list, but it’s not even worth my time. DON’t chose this place. You will regret!
Also, they tried to occupy MY parking space for three days without providing me an extra parking. When I went to the leasing office, the old women who looks old enough to be my grandmother refused to give me a spot with a horrible attitude. Seriously, horrible. Her attitude was like I own her a lot of money. I was going to yell, but my boyfriend stopped me because I shouldn’t be as low as her. Guys, believe me, RUN!!!

Update–
So I finally moved out of Toscana! I lived there from May 2011– Dec 2013.
Pros–
* Relatively cheap for the price and square footage.
* Maintenance staff is responsive and nice!
* Sam (the consultant at the leasing office is AMAZING!)
* Pools are nice but not heated.
* Lety the manager is nice and always willing to work with you.
* Toscana puts on Food truck days and holiday festivities!
Cons–
* Parking is HORRIBLE. Don’t get me started. If you have friends, you wouldn’t want to move here. They will tow your ass if you don’t have parking permits or park in someone else’s spot. You only get 10 overnight guest. Period.
* Security is AWEFUL. Our car got broken into once and somebody stole my bike! My bike was chained up and someone CUT the chain! Kind of a crime high area even though we are in Irvine.
* Security is REALLY AWEFUL. I’ve called several times regarding domestic violence cases, possible break-​ins, and etc, and they show up 20mins– 1 hour later. If they cannot show up on time, they need to communicate that so I can call 911.
Neutrals–
* Your neighbors could be loud depending on which side you are facing.
* Amenities are par for what you are paying!
* Close to UCI and there is a bus!
If you are on a tight budget, this is the place to go! However, if you have friends and want them to come over, this is not the place for you. You are only allowed to have 10 overnight guests TOTAL. That’s it. If you must rent from Toscana, don’t forget to ask for Sam! He’s the best! GO SAM!