Waterstone at Metro

Thanks for the phone call yesterday, as stated over the phone I understand the terms I agreed to in my lease renewal but negative review is heavily focused on the fact that your employee Holly made no effort to reply to my email and pushed me to collections vs the helpful call I had with you yesterday.

Chris was a wonderful addition and only nice thing I have to say about the owner change… This new management company left a lot to be desired. The work being done is average at best. Just look around when u come in and can see the shoddy work. They moved the mail into the garage to put up plastic crap… The designer should be slapped, so behind the times with this slap on paint and make it look slick. We want safety and amenities. Not our front door left open all day… The new Building manager that replaced the last one for this company certainly seems to care more. He has been a lot more hands on and he react quickly to issues. I have high hopes for this building as the location is perfect to get at all of LA.

I moved in under the old management in November 2014. I had little experience with the new management and mistakenly transferred my lease into one of the remodeled units because my old one smelled like an ashtray. I signed the new lease August 2015 and due to the horrible new management, I have paid the Early Termination Option penalty fee of one month’s rent after three months and am getting OUT. I’ve read the previous reviews, and my experience has been similar. The ineffective and incompetent Daniellea has been replaced, and I don’t yet have an opinion on the two new people in the office, but the Regional Manager at RW Selby is also ineffective and incompetent with poor communication and no phone number at which he can be reached so if you do move in and have trouble, don’t count on Mr. Cordova for assistance. Unit #329 sits below the jacuzzi motor that runs 24 hours per day. The noise is unbelievable at times, and when it’s going full blast my walls and floor vibrate.

Tenants and potential renters, the current management is very displeasing. I lived here for two years and I want to emphasize how poorly the current the management team is. I thought our previous management was bad, the currents one are even worst. I even feel I want our previous management team, at least I don’t get into arguments over things I need help in. They are very defensive and do not assist in any way which is leading me to a negative comment on Unilocal.Be careful, there are no standards they follow which makes you think if the management team is organize or not?
I hope they read this and realize not only me but others feel the same way.

Notice to prospective tenants: I was recently approved for an apartment and had to decline. The 57-​page lease is ENORMOUSLY unfair to tenants. When I requested that the landlord make appropriate changes /​amendments to the lease, I was informed that it was company policy that they «would not make any changes to the lease.»
In particular, note Paragraph 35 of the lease (reprinted below). This paragraph essentially requires you to waive all of your tenant rights. While it’s likely unenforceable under CA Landlord-​Tenant law, you should still request to have it stricken from the lease. It is enormously unfair. The shared utilities addendum and renovations addendum are also unfairly written. The first should be modified to include an adjustment for vacancy rate and the second to have a clause protecting the tenant from the renovations taking too long. Again, all of these requests were summarily denied.
*quote*
Paragraph 35: RELEASE OF CLAIMS Tenant agrees to release, acquit and forever discharge Landlord and its property managers from [emphasis added] ***any complaints, claims, suits, demands, costs, losses, causes of action, damages, obligations, liabilities and expenses of whatever kind and character, known or unknown***. … Tenant agrees that all of his/​her rights under Section 1542 of the Civil Code of the State of California are hereby waived.
Section 1542 of the Civil Code of the State of California
1542. A general release does not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release, which if known by him or her must have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor.
*/​quote*
*****
I strongly encourage you to NOT sign a lease with this provision.
*****

Prospective tenants — I understand your struggle.
It’s difficult to find a decent place in LA. While the location of this complex is convenient, I caution you to be mindful of management.
I’ve lived here for 6 months. I experienced the change in management. While the previous management wasn’t the best, this current management isn’t much better.
A few weeks ago my roommate and I discovered a gross mold problem in our kitchen and living room. It looked like it’s been there prior to our move-​in because the moldy stain underneath our carpet was the length of our living room… So disgusting.
When we told the manager about our situation, I thought she was being nice when she offered temporary housing within the apartment complex until they finished renovating the kitchen and living room. She notified us that we’d have the place till 6÷30÷2015.
When I returned home on Friday, May 29, I found two men from the maintenance team move items from my temporary home to the unfinished MOLDY apartment WITHOUT my consent. I was confused, upset and frustrated because I was under the impression we’d have the temporary place till the end of June. When I addressed the situation with the manager, I discovered management needed to move me out of the temporary place and back into the UNFINISHED moldy apartment because they found a tenant who wanted to move into my temporary place.
I felt like the manager didn’t care about my well-​being. I felt like I was a body used to fill a spot and pay their bills. And during this whole conversation, she failed to acknowledge and apologize for this miscommunication. It’s curious that the manager said she’d fight for us and she said she was on our side… then why would she move me back into the unfinished apartment? Why did she fail to acknowledge the miscommunication and fail to apologize for the inconvenience? I feel so betrayed. I no longer feel safe or comfortable in a place I wanted to call my home.
So prospective tenants I caution you to be mindful of management. Don’t be fooled with these «community events» because when it’s time to choose between money and your well-​being — management will choose money.
This one star is for the maintenance team who apologized for moving my stuff without my consent and who empathized with me when I told them the situation. I appreciated their kind words. Thank you maintenance team!

Becareful of your belongings, things will mysteriously disappear and claim that this has never happened in their bulidling and will threatin you about contacting their attorney. Very shady business when it comes to leasing and leaving no paper work when they check your unit. Be care, i don’t think you’d want maitenance snooping throught your things!

I rarely review anything but the Waterstone at Cheviot Hills apartments are very nice and worth looking at. The grounds are meticulously maintained everyday. The staff is very nice and very quick to respond to any maintenance issues. The complex is quiet and residents are friendly. Safety is always a concern and I feel security measures are in place. This complex is very central to everything in the city. Grocery store is right across the street. Many nice restaurants are very close by as well. Several are walking distance too. I would definitely refer these units to others. To the management I’d say keep doing what you’re doing.

We lived at Waterstone for over a year while looking for our 1^st home. First, the location is amazing. You can walk to Downtown Culver City and have great neighborhoods and schools in next door in Cheviot Hills. New Metro line will soon take you to Santa Monica. I found the rents to be very reasonable for this location. The best part of our experience though was the management team. Phil, Cole, and Mike are professional, responsive, pleasant, and very friendly. They took care of everything we needed and more from start to finish. We referred a college student of a co-​worker there and will continue to recommend Waterstone to others.

Don’t waste your money renting a place here. Let’s start with the negatives, since I have no positives.
Philip, the leasing manager is a complete a-​hole d-​bag. Dude, you’re a leasing manager, lose the attitude. You’re job is to ensure renters are happy.
When you leave they will try to hit you with a bunch of charges so factor losing a couple hundred dollars of your deposit into your rent price.
The place has a mold problem. There was mold constantly growing around the windows.
The building maintenance is useless. The garbage disposal constantly broke and there was build up in the shower head so there was no pressure but they refused to change it or fix it.
The pool is so small it’s pretty much useless and the hot tub never works

I have been here for 6 month and all is fine. I deduct one star for sensitive alarm system, and rude maintenance supervisor.

Had lived here for over a year and we renewed our lease!
The guys in the office were easy to deal with and they have been doing work on the building since we moved in so most things are remodeled. We have new Gas grills in the community courtyard area with Wi-​FI and the Hot-​tub works perfectly now! Pet friendly and they have a pet center out front with garbage and bags which I never see anywhere else!
Covered parking with place for chaining bikes is nice. Having Vons across the street as well as one of the cheapest gas in the area!

See you around.

Update: after leaving my previous review I would like to point out how the leasing manager Phil was sooooo rude!
He has a very rude way of speaking to people in general, I think it’s just how he is, but after leaving my Unilocal review he stopped me before getting into the elevator to confront me about it. He said, «Hey you left a Unilocal review, Ya I get notified when we get one, and you should have came to us before you do something like that» (very rudely) and then a few days later he called and asked about my Unilocal review AGAIN. He honestly made me so uncomfortable I avoided the main lobby during office hours so he wouldn’t rudely bring it up again. Did I mention how rude he is?!

I have lived here for just a few months and I LOVE it. They staff is extremely friendly and accommodating. The maintenance guy has been «johnny on the spot» the few times I have needed him. When I moved in they told me they were thinking about possibly putting in some grills for barbecuing in the courtyard. It turns out they were serious and the grills they put in are awesome. The neighborhood is a perfect mixture of excitement and convenience. Within walking distance are several nice restaurants, good nightlife and even a movie theater. Check this out for convenience – across the street are the following major conveniences: Vons, Rite Aid, Starbucks, Dry Cleaning, UPS/​Fed Ex (perfect for those of us who work a home office), Papa Murphy’s, Chinese Restaurant, Sushi, Mexican Restaurant, ATM. I repeat, all ACROSS THE FREAKING STEET!!! The neighborhood is nice and quiet. There is easy access to the 10 and you are on the right side of that whole ¹⁰⁄₄₀₅ mess. The train station is exactly 1 mile from the front door, making a trip to downtown or Hollywood very simple.

DO NOT RENT HERE!!! Like previous review said, my first month’s rent was off by $ 300 so two months later they decided to bill me for their mistake, urging that I pay it within days (I had to plead to give me 2 weeks extra). The office manager is so rude, speaks to me like to a criminal who has no intention of paying my rent (which is always on time). As far as apartment/​building go, there is a creepy pedophile type who lives here, he stalks every young female who moves into the building (and more, but I’ll leave it at that). The rent is way overpriced for similar type of apartments in same neighborhood and around LA. Overall, NOT happy that I am stuck here, do some more research and find yourself a better building and a better deal.

I recently looked into renting a studio apartment here. I spoke with the leasing consultant, Cole, and he was really nice. I had a tour of the grounds and of course the apartment. The grounds were well kept. The amenities were nice too! They had free WiFi in the courtyard area, which I thought was awesome. They have a pool on the roof top. However, it is very small and primarily used for taking a dip, not swimming laps. They also have a hot tub and poolside cabanas. It is a nice place to have a very small get together with friends. The complex also has a fitness center (it is very small though) and a full-​service dry cleaning pick up and drop off on site!
I saw the model apartment which was not the floor plan I would be potentially living in – that was a total bummer. The model was really nice and very spacious, but it is hard to make a decision about moving into an apartment if you don’t get to VIEW the apartment you will be getting or even a different apartment with the exact floor plan. In the end, I did not choose to live here for that reason. I did not want to rent something I couldn’t see and I felt they were a little overpriced. They were offering me a studio that was smaller than the one I saw for $ 1,400/month.
However, it is a nice place!

First of all I want to state that I don’t live in this complex. I almost did (i applied and even put a hold on the apt) but soo glad I decided not to go through with the move. There are lots of things that seem decent about this complex, which is why I almost ended up there. As the last reviewer said, it looks like they made an effort to make the building look new and contemporary. The deposit is super low and the layouts of the apartments are quite nice. However! if you are considering moving into this complex make sure they aren’t seriously ripping you off.
Case in point: The leasing manager doesn’t know how to do basic math. If you have to pay a prorated month, look over the numbers, he did mine wrong. When we pointed that out to him, he said he would revisit the numbers and call back. He never called back. (which is another thing, they don’t respond to calls or emails). Another thing that happened was the price of the pet rent went up when I received the 48 page contract. When I asked why the pet rent changed from the initial price they told me, they didn’t have an answer…
One more thing. the one bedroom i had on hold was for $ 1605. Which i was ok with, until I saw later the same day they had another 1 bedroom on craigslist listed for $ 1565. I brought this up to the manager who told me they price the apartments based on location, and since the one I had on hold was on the third floor facing west, it was on the high end. So I thought ok, I guess that makes sense. Until I checked their website and the 1 bedroom apt NEXT DOOR was at the lower price. Makes no sense at all. Like I said, I ended up canceling my move, and low and behold, the apt is now listed at the lower price.
If you are still considering moving here, at least look over the numbers because they are really sneaky with that stuff.

For starters I have lived here for coming up on 4 years, so long enough to know but not long enough to be jaded.
I have trashed this place on different forums in the past due to an awful front office team. Right now they seem to have a pretty good group of people in there. But it seems to be a stepping stone for managers to «check a box» and go on to bigger and better places so we’ll see how long that lasts. Furthermore If you can get past some of the negative comments from a previous Unilocaler by remembering that 1) it is a 30 year year old building 2) there are plenty of different dynamics from having 100+ units filled with tenants and 3) It is «pet friendly» so if you don’t want dog related accidents don’t live here, then you should find this to be a pretty descent place to live.
With that said, the hallway flooring is ridiculous. There used to be carpet in the hallways which would get stained on a regular occasion; I imagine that is the reason they decided to change it. The management group (not leasing office staff) decided they wanted an industrial flooring type of feel to it. They pretty much painted and stained the concrete under the carpet that I think is supposed to look marbley or something but they didn’t pull it off. Well the company dropped like $ 50K on the flooring and it looks worse than the carpet. But instead of try again they kept the flooring and hired an interior designer to find a way to draw your eyes away from the floor. They installed new lighting fixtures, moldings and painted the hallways which actually looks good but every once in a while your eyes drift to the floor and are reminded of that atrocity. Because of this flooing situation I can’t bring myself to give it 4 stars but 3 is under rated so 3.5 would probably be an acceptable rating.

I saw some nasty reviews about this place on a website that provides ratings for apartments in LA (sorry forgot the website), but I liked the area, the proximity to my work so I gave it a shot. So many regrets.. .This place is a DUMP! Dog urine all over the hall ways, on the walls, in the carpet. Constant issues with plumbing, which take days to fix (do you like having other people’s bath water in your apartment?), elevators (1 elevator has been down for 8 months), and overloading trash bins on a daily basis that do not receive the necessary attention. NOTHING gets fixed/​cleaned. The place is a mess, absolutely horrible –you guessed it, I’m breaking my lease and moving the hell out.