The View on the Square — Attraction in San Marcos

I took a roll of the dice and signed a year-long lease at ‘The View’ in San Marcos for the 22-23 school years as a last resort option, and it was one of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made. I’d rate this place with negative stars if I could for the following reasons:

-The community. Obviously, the majority of the residents here are college students, which didn't give me the highest standards to begin with, but this place is on another level. The residents here have zero respect for the cleanliness of the property. Although they have staff members clean floors and common areas, they are trashed again in a matter of days. More times than I’d care to recall, there was vomit, animal feces, and trash littered all throughout the hallways, the parking garage, and pool area. Most people here also don’t care to keep their volume in check either. Randomly, throughout the night, I’d wake up to people yelling and sprinting down the hallways and just being generally obnoxious. I can’t speak for every section of the building, but the east-southeast side of the complex by the pool and clubroom was flat-out awful.

-Maintenance issues. For a combined total of at least 6 weeks of the year I was here, the elevators were down, which meant all residents had to use the stairways. Furthermore, the fire alarms went off on 5 different occasions (4 of which in between 1:00 a.m. & 4:00 a.m., beeping for a minimum of 20 minutes each time until the San Marcos Fire Department came and turned them off). Oh, and the A/C in our unit was out for almost a week in the spring, so the unit was over 80° F for that whole time.

-Roommate matching survey. I got the exact opposite of what I checked on the survey. My roommates had zero respect for noise and they also smoked indoors. If you don’t end up getting the kind of roommates you want, there is almost nothing that can be done about it, as they signed a lease just like you, so you're stuck with each other.

The only positive thing I can say is the maintenance guys (aside from the A/C issue) were quick with repairs. Most of the leasing office staff is friendly and the new leasing office manager, Elyssa (who arrived at her position towards the end of my time there), is very professional and cooperative. Since she's arrived, the property seems to have shaped up slightly, but I'm afraid its to little to late. I’ll leave any potential future residents with this: if you are someone who takes your schooling seriously and just want a relatively quiet and peaceful place to live and sleep, I urge you to look elsewhere. Don’t let the fancy website design or brochures fool you. There are plenty of other places within the same price range in San Marcos.

If I took a photo or video every time I encountered a cleanliness issue, my camera roll would be full, but I’ve attached a couple photos so you can see for yourself. Audios ‘The View’, can't...

I have never taken the time out of my day to write a bad review, but this place is deplorable and deserves it. I would not recommend living here if you plan to have unknown roommates. While conflicts can arise with anyone, the way management handled my situation was unprofessional. After reporting that my roommate brought over 9+ guests at 1:30 AM on a weeknight, with some males verbally harassing me and another tenant, our concerns were dismissed. They refused to take action, saying it happened on a previous night.

It was clear that being a woman living with other women was the issue at hand, as mentioned by Alison (property manager). The conflict initially arose over a simple cleanliness dispute, but things escalated when the safety of two tenants was compromised due to our roommate’s behavior. There’s more to the story, but it became obvious that since we hadn’t written a 5-star review or "interacted" with Alison before, my roommate and I were blamed for requesting basic cleanliness and respect—not to mention asking not to be sexually harassed by guests our roommate brought over. (If you want to read the roommate's glowing and grammatically correct review scroll down).

To add to the frustration, my roommate broke the lease and was excused by simply stating she didn’t read it. However, when I asked to be removed from the parking fee, I was told the contract was legally binding. It’s clear that whether or not someone reads a contract, signing it is legally binding, yet this was only applied selectively.

Not all management or front office staff fall under this review. Madi B., Jordan, and the maintenance team have always been kind, helpful, and responsive. However, my roommate and I had to drive all the way to Austin just to address our concerns with corporate, and they didn’t seem to care much either.

Beyond the roommate issues, this place is far from "luxury." The carpets smell foul and have notable fluid stains covering all the floors. The apartment feels cheaply built—one of our cabinets broke, shortly after move-in, shattering multiple pieces of glassware, which we were not compensated for. I would also hope that if I’m paying $120 a month for parking, the stairs leading to the garage would be at least pleasant to walk down—not covered in feces or reeking of vomit, which is a regular issue. If you do sign here don't pay for covered parking as the first floor has free spots that are never managed as advised by Alison. Lastly, the proximity to train tracks makes the area noisy at all hours, despite being advertised as quiet.

Although I understand this is student housing, I have visited friends and seen other apartments that truly deserve to advertise as luxury in other college towns like Austin, Lubbock, and Athens, GA and even San Marcos. This seems to be specific to The View. I would be glad to share my experiences further with...

DO NOT I REPEAT DO NOT SIGN A LEASE HERE . This is by far the worst experience I’ve ever had living somewhere. I was met with a plethora of bad experiences and to start it all off is the terrible treatment I faced by the leasing office. I was constantly treated with disrespect and met with condescending and sarcastic attitudes by the ladies in the front office and by the leasing manager Allison. The team is very unprofessional and not friendly at all and often had a lack of knowledge on procedures and policies. They would rather spend their time gossiping and planning their giveaways and events, than tend to the needs of their own residents. Only after I spoke up about the disrespect, got laughed at to my face by one of the girls, is when I finally got met with nicer attitudes. The parking situation here is terrible, you are basically forced to get a parking pass which costs $90 to $120 a month for a guaranteed spot to which you need because the so called “free” parking spots do not accommodate for the hundreds of residents that live here and there are only about 30 free spots. Good luck trying to find parking for you and your guests as they constantly tow here as many people who visit the square like to park here for free. The spots are built for small cars and my car has been hit and scratched a handful of times by residents and guests. Also if you fall behind on your parking pass payment, Allison the leasing manager, will threaten you with eviction and threaten to take you to court and to debt collections and tell you to learn how to read the agreements next time. I fell behind on my parking pass payment as I went home for winter break and when I came back, they withheld all my mail and packages, which is a federal offense, until they received payment. Only after I threatened to take legal action, is when I got an apology and was told they were “joking” and just testing out ways to get people to pay their parking pass. All the hallways in the building have carpet and are disguising and smell horrible, littered with stains from trash cans, resident throw up and animals feces. The residents here have no class, manners or respect as I dealt with noisy upstairs neighbors the entire year to which the office was no help. The first floors of the building have an insect problem with crickets and roaches. The bathrooms have a ventilation issues as moisture kept building up causing mold. I could go on and on but please just save your time and money and sign somewhere else as this place is...