Onyx Apartments — Attraction in Redmond

Mostly families live here, but they don’t do a very good job of controlling their children. The kids throw rocks at cars, and scratched a bunch of paint off the side of mine. The leasing office sent out an email asking people nicely to stop the vandalism, to no effect. Kids have also attempted to enter my apartment twice while I was home. Once by opening my front door, again trying to remove the mesh screen from my bedroom window and climb in (?)

Much less of a concern - They also are always outside playing, which means that if you are unlucky enough to have a ground floor unit, there will be gangs of children standing outside your window, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Talking to parents about any of this seems to have no effect, they just say “ok, sorry, we’ll talk to them” and then nothing changes. I don’t blame the folks at the leasing office, they don’t have much power to control residents behavior. But at the point where elementary school kids are vandalizing property, and breaking in to people’s homes, something must be done. What is this, lord of the flies? These parents are absurdly incompetent. Don’t subject yourself to living here.

Here’s an email they sent out about these issues

July 1, 2020

Dear Residents,

We have had multiple residents’ approach us to report concerns regarding various disturbances in our community. These concerns include:

Damages to vehicles from rocks and/or other objects – There are reports of damage to resident’s vehicles due to rocks being thrown and/or used to “mark” on cars. We ask that residents have a conversation with all family members to make them aware that we do require everyone to be respectful of others personal belongings. This also extends to refraining from tampering/throwing/playing with rocks around the property. Rocks left in the lawn can cause problems when mowing the lawn, which can include breaking windows and causing brown spots to the grass. The rocks around the property are for drainage and serve as part of our landscaping. Again, please do not remove rocks from where there are placed and be respectful of your neighbor’s property.

Loud disturbances – Although our quiet hours are 10:00pm until 8:00am daily, we would like to remind you to be considerate of your neighbors and refrain from loud disturbances at any time.

Personal items and recreational activities disturbing the flow of traffic. Several near misses where persons have nearly been hit while riding bikes and scooters have been reported. We are concerned about everyone’s safety and want to remind you that recreational activities – such as badminton - in the parking lot are not allowed. Though we discourage riding bikes and scooters in the parking lot, if you choose to engage in this, PLEASE make sure that all minors are properly supervised and that there is awareness of traffic and surrounding personal property. We have a play area and tennis court for you to utilize and enjoy the outdoors here at The Onyx. Additionally, we encourage everyone to take advantage of the close proximity to Marymoor Park – located at 6046 W Lake Sammamish Pkwy NE, Redmond, WA 98052. The park has 640 acres of wide-open space that is located away from high traffic areas where kids of all ages can play. You can enjoy a picnic, walk your dog, play sports, go for a walk or ride your bike/scooter. They also have a couple playgrounds and a rock-climbing section. They are open from 8:00am – Dusk. Additionally, please ensure that personal belongings are not blocking driveways...

The worse apartments community in Redmond My problems start from day 1 when we moved to the onyx community. The apartment wasn’t ready, it wasn’t clean, a lot of stains on the wall, the smell was too bad and the bath room smelt like public restroom. Cristy the leasing manager agreed that the apartment wasn’t ready but we already moved and she said we would send out the maintenance guys to fix it, we went to Nikki (the worst manager ever) and she said the apartment is vacant and you stay there and no problem to live in it even she knows it is not ready for us and we will try to fix it. It took them two weeks, maintenance guy painted spots on the wall, patio and try to clean the unit, of Couse our furniture was un-rapped and very inconvenient to stay in the unit during that time, we tried to move out to a ready unit or even out the onyx but we would have lost a lot of money (application, move out fees and break lease fees). Lesson learnt is the sign with bad manager you lose, we went to the court and found an attorney to work with for a small count case but these cases take a long time and still ongoing…. We try to move forward but issues and problem happened almost every month, let me share some with you so you think a lot before you sign with the onyx • All kitchen appliances are old and smelly. • We had a broken refrigerator, we called and they considered it a none emergency problem, they brought another old and used refrigerator but it was also broken so they brought a third one old/ used which was working ( they never try to bring a new refrigerator) • The water heater from 1996, my neighbor ( one floor down) had water heater explosion • The washer and dryer were too old, they remodel the laundry room but kept the same old wash and dryer. Yes they remodeled the laundry room while the unit was occupied and told us you can’t use it for a week. • No microwave but it is ok, we purchased our ( minor but not convince to lose counter space for microwave) • We had flying ants in the unit on March- April, they said it is ok and schedule pest control, it took a week for pest control to come • We had electrical short circuit, they called electrician to fix it, he checked and didn’t know why or what happened and still don’t know the issue. • They don’t take garbage on the weekend and the dumpsters were over loaded that make a good place for RATs • Yes, there are RATs in the community, we complained about it many times but they are still there because it is not an emergency for the onyx managers. They only consider fire and flooding emergencies. • Very bad communication with residences, for example I found people knocking my doors and saying they are from the onyx maintenance and they need to check the laundry room heater valve or something in my unit. Also they send two days note for mail box replace (really you only know two days before the mail box replace) and when it was the time to do the parking I was out of town and they send an email ( not one or two months note) but few days before the project started, I was able to manage and send a friend over to move my car from my assigned parking otherwise they planned to towing my car • Too many issues and problems at the Onyx, I end up moved early and lost one month My two cents advice to you, don’t go to the onyx community, Don’t live there and if you have to, be ready for the problems and I will feel...

Zero stars.

Why live here when you could live under a bridge for free? At least there would be less mold. Management claims the mold is an issue with the humidity in the buildings, but I have been running a dehumidifier to keep the humidity at 45% since I moved in, and the mold is still here. It's in the walls. It's in the carpets. It's everywhere. If you move here, it will be in you, too. There are hundreds of children at this complex who are doing lifelong damage to themselves by living here, and the Onyx has the audacity to blame the tenants for not running the bathroom fan long enough.

On-site maintenance is great, but the management is useless. They are utterly incompetent and have not solved a single issue since I have been here. I once thought they did, but it turned out that the maintenance team did their job for them.

I haven't even faced the dreaded move-out costs yet. They are supposed to be more than one month's rent. I would not recommend this apartment to anybody under any circumstances. The things I would do to break my lease, let me count the ways...

EDIT: Upon moveout, the Onyx kept my security deposit and charged me an extra fee so that they could repaint the entire apartment and refinish the floors. I'll admit to some normal wear and tear, but this was unnecessary, and the Onyx did not provide any documentation proving that repainting the entire apartment was necessary. This is illegal, but what's one more crime for the road? They have also charged me for utilities used in the office, stormwater fees, and other utilities for common areas, not just my apartment. These charges were not provided for in the lease, but are too small to file suit for.

Also, for the majority of my lease, I did not have a functioning mailbox. We were told to wait in line at the post office, which most of the tenants could not get to during the week. As a result, most of the 400 tenants in this building waited in line at the post office every Saturday to get their mail. Eventually, they put old, broken mailboxes in the lobby and had us use those. They were still using broken mailboxes with chains and padlocks when I moved out.

They also charged me for ordinary holes in the walls (I hung pictures), which Melia told me during my tour was allowed. To be fair, the lease does not allow tenants to put any holes in the walls, but Melia materially misrepresented the terms of renting at the apartment during my tour.

Having spoken with management, accounting, and on site staff, I am certain the entire organization is despicable, top to bottom. Greystar and the Onyx can kick rocks.

P.S. management responded to this review pretending to be helpful and requesting that I reach out. I did reach out to Ken, and he proved for the umpteenth time that Greystar is...