Muse at SoCo — Local services in Austin

I’ve lived here for a few months now, and I’m already leaning toward moving elsewhere — either early or once my lease is up — despite initially wanting to stay long term because of how great the location is.

Unfortunately, this property is just poorly managed. • The valet trash company doesn’t come by every day like they’re supposed to. The recycling bags they provide are so small that people just leave boxes piled outside their doors until it justifies walking them to the recycling bin. • Trash and recycling are often left outside of doorways for weeks at a time. • There are exposed electrical wires in the hallways of the complex. • Homeless individuals occasionally hang out on the stairways during the day. • Several cars clearly haven’t moved in months—maybe even years. Parking is already tight, so why haven’t these vehicles been tagged or towed? • When I moved in, my apartment was clearly not cleaned or inspected beforehand. The floors were filthy, the bathtubs had hair from the previous resident, and the walls throughout the unit had noticeable scuff marks. • My refrigerator keeps having the same issue after the first one stopped working. I suspect it’s causing my food to spoil faster than usual, but I’m tired of submitting maintenance requests at this point. • The subcontractors they use do extremely sloppy work. You can see patchwork on the ceilings and walls, and paint stains on the floor from them not using protective liners. Because of the poor workmanship, there are also visible cracks in the ceiling where previous patching was done. • My apartment clearly wasn’t given a fresh coat of paint before I moved in. There are several small and medium-sized spots on the walls that look tacky and add up over time. Management told me this was just “normal wear and tear” and wouldn’t be addressed. • My fireplace worked for only a week after maintenance initially fixed it. It’s now been out of commission for a couple of months. Another long-time resident told me it could take several more months to be repaired because management waits until multiple units report issues before calling in a contractor. They’ll also say the fireplace is “supposed to stay lit” — even though it has an igniter. It seems they’d rather have us pay more in gas bills than actually fix the issue.

It’s clear the property management team doesn’t walk the complex or take note of these ongoing issues.

To be fair, Marlon and John from the maintenance team are both super friendly and very responsive. I think their hands are tied on a lot of these problems, which is unfortunate since they’re the main people residents interact with day to day.

Mariah and Sara at the front desk have also been very friendly whenever I’ve spoken with them.

That said, it seems the real issue is the ownership company behind the property. They want us to pay premium prices for a subpar complex just because of the prime location — a typical example of corporate greed.

Which brings me to another point: the guest parking situation has recently gotten even worse. The owners want to make more money from the parking garage, so residents are now only allowed to validate parking for a maximum of 30 hours per weekend. That’s not per guest or per vehicle — it’s per resident. Since this is such a great location, you’d expect to have friends over who can park easily and walk to dinner or events nearby. But now, with this new policy, your guests could be charged nearly $60 per day to park — which is just disgusting. Residents should be able to have friends over without worrying about them getting charged outrageous fees. There shouldn’t be a cap on how much parking validation we’re allowed to use.

So, please be aware of all these issues before signing a lease. A lot of small problems here do...

We moved in with high hopes. The building seemed well-designed, the location worked, and I was excited to settle in.

But on move-in day, my apartment hadn’t even been cleaned yet, including old press on nails leftover in the bathroom drawers, and there was a strong odor coming from the floor. It turned out that glue was visibly seeping from the floorboards, and a portion of the flooring had to be pulled up. The apartment was uninhabitable for several days while we waited on repair and then waited for the new flooring to dry. While I understand things happen, no compensation was offered, and there was very little communication from the front office. It made a hard moment feel harder.

I also had concerns about water damage and potential mold, especially after hearing that another unit had flooring issues from a leak.

The apartment was never given a fresh coat of paint before we moved in, things that have always come standard in new move ins at past apartments. The result is it always feels a bit worn, and dingy.

In those first weeks we considered just moving out entirely. I actually met the person who lived in my apartment before me when she came to pick up old packages - they only lasted 3 days in my apartment before they demanded to leave. They wanted to leave the Muse completely but would have had to pay a hefty fee, so they moved to another apartment in the complex.

Security has been inconsistent. On Christmas Eve I had $800 worth of packages stolen from my front doorstep. I was told there’s a security guard on duty nightly, but after being here six months and often walking my dog around the complex at night, I’ve never seen anyone. There are also unhoused people who sometimes take shelter in the stairwells with all of their belongings, which can feel unsettling.

Parking is difficult. Guests are now required to pay full price, which includes anyone coming to do work in your unit—though Equinox guests still seem to have access. It’s confusing and doesn’t feel equitable. You'd think they could find a way for us to have guests.

On a positive note, the maintenance team is EXCELLENT. Truly. They’re quick, kind, and consistently helpful. I’m really grateful for them.

I’m genuinely confused by some of the positive reviews here, although I know residents are incentivized through the renters portal to leave reviews so that could explain the discrepancy. I see a lot of the reviewers have only posted one review total. My neighbors I talk to do not have any of the high praise some of these reviewers have. The reviews were a big reason we trusted moving here, so I think it’s important that the reviews be accurate.

I hope someone who is able to make change sees this review and these issues are acknowledged, taken seriously, and fixed. I hate to write this. I just want things to be better and I’m hoping...

I’ve had quite a terrible experience living here for the past 1.5 years, but I’ll just try to give you facts and you can make a judgment from there on whether this place is right for you.

I enjoyed the first few months of living here. The units themselves and the office/clubhouse is really nice, but the rest is where the problem lies. The last year of staying here was honestly the worst and I honestly didn’t look forward to coming home.

The biggest nail on the coffin (which also helped get out of staying here longer) was that our sprinkler system in our ceiling EXPLODED one evening. Our entire 3br apartment was flooded 3inches deep in water within just a few minutes. We believed it may have been tied to some long term maintenance issues that were never solved within our own unit, considering they were plumbing related problems that hadn’t been fixed for months. The apartment was unlivable from that point on and a lot of our things were damaged/ruined, so we were able to terminate our lease with some legal help (They weren’t letting us terminate our lease at first). Make sure your renters insurance is good because they’ll be covering you in case of any problems there.

The garage is always a mess. The trash chutes were removed after a few months living here, so people would just put their trash bags in the garage where the chutes are instead.

It seems like a good majority of the complex is used for Air Bnb and Stay Alfred. So be prepared to have new neighbors every other night. And every weekend a guaranteed party until 2-3am. SXSW and ACL made this super annoying.

The complex told us there was security every night to monitor garage activity, but I’ve honestly seen security walking around maybe a handful of times in the past 1.5 years.

The $50 parking fee is required in your rent, but the parking is not regulated. So when SXSW and ACL happen, you’ll be sure to looking around for parking for quite a while due to people parking here who don’t have a pass.

Getting anything delivered is a nightmare (Instacart, Postmates, etc) The buildings are poorly labeled so trying to give your delivery person good directions is still a huge gamble. Quite often I had to walk to the front of the complex whenever I’d make an order.

There’s been a lot of construction in the time I lived there. It’s not really the fault of the complex, just a huge inconvenience with getting in and out of the garage.

The pool is always a big party. There aren’t rules with how many guests of your unit can use the pool (or frankly the public), so quite often there will be times where there are 40+...