Marquis Ellis Crossing — Local services in Durham

Do your research and don't believe fake fluff reviews. At least two of the reviews on Google were clearly written by family members of the Board of the former management company, Drucker & Falk LLC, who were not saavy enough to change their last names.

The apartments themselves are nice enough, but lacking in a few key areas. I can hear every single step my upstairs neighbor takes loud and clear at every hour of the day or night, often so loud that even people on the other end of phone calls have asked about it on more than one occasion. You can hear tons of running water through the walls whenever your neighbor's toilet flushes, when they're doing their laundry, or when they have the dishwasher going. If you let them talk you into the $20 a month extra ground floor unit for the sake of the non-carpeted floors for your pet, your scenic choices are either to face the 15 foot high berm/hill in the back or to never be able to keep your shades open because your apartment is on full display to the crowded parking lot and sidewalk in the front, where your day and night will be peppered with the sounds of car horns honking whenever your neighbors lock their cars several times an hour just a few feet from your kitchen/dining/bedroom windows. Oh, and then there are those kind folks who ever-so-graciously walk their dogs on the lawn right next to your windows too. Very uncomfortable.

Mandatory valet trash pickup is advertised upon moving in as being Sun - Thur from 6pm - 8pm (also an extra $25/month), but more recently has been happening closer to 11pm or beyond most nights and itself comes with quite a bit of noise.

With regard to the management, the old administration was one of the most incompetent groups of people I've ever dealt with. My apartment had a flood that they caused the day I moved in, which was not addressed with Maintenance for two weeks. In addition, I was given the wrong mailbox keys the day I moved in. The property was very quietly purchased and turned over as of October 1st to Greystar, who are a bit more reputable and manage a lot of property in this area. With the sloppiness of the transition, however, none of the residents were informed of the change, and the online rent payment portal was taken down with no notice at all to current residents about changes to how they paid their rent or notice of the new administration at all until a letter was placed on everyone's door on the 2nd. As a result, all residents were now asked to drop off physical checks to the office instead and told any attempted payments they'd already tried to make were voided or returned, causing a lot of inconvenience for many, especially those who may have been out of town. Off the bat, the new administration seems highly disorganized, and the poor new guy who has been holding down the fort in the office at The Clubhouse is both seemingly overwhelmed under the circumstances and not amused about the situation. Good luck to him and the management. Hopefully they can turn it around.

If you're one of the people who is going to be sold on the amenities like the old administration boasted were the selling point, I can say this: The pools are wonderful, both the indoor and the outdoor. The Clubhouse is also filled with wonderful other amenities that sound great on paper and look wonderful, but aside from the gym you'll probably use once and then completely forget about. The onsite gym is quite good and above average for most communities I've seen. The built-in Virtual Reality game room, however, I have never once seen a single person ever use. The same goes for the PlayStation gaming room, which closes outside of normal Clubhouse hours. There is also a separate game room with old arcade games, a TV, a pool table, and a ping pong table. You'll use this once or twice for about 10-20 minutes at best, probably whenever you show your guests around to show them how cool your new digs are, then you'll never key into again. Bottom line, don't let them sell you on the amenities when the apartments themselves leave quite a bit...

04/20/18: Down two stars. Wish I had picked somewhere else to live but I have 12 months to go. Won't be renewing here.

They're SO anal about valet trash Parking really sucks Getting packages makes you seem like a bother People speed in the complex Dog poop everywhere My car and several others were broken into last week

This is the only complex I have lived in that has been so uptight about the trash service that they actually fine and "confiscate" those uselessly small trashcans as a warning to residents. Keep it. It's more of a hassle to adhere to the billion rules than it is to just take my own trash 100ft to the dumpster.

This is also the most expensive complex I have lived in. Coincidence? I think not. You can make a lot of money charging fines in a complex this size. $1099/mo for the one bedroom, $25 for trash, and your firstborn child if you want internet. $80/mo because using Frontier is mandatory. No Spectrum here. Won't be surprised if they raise the rent a few hundred at renewal time.

#anyonewantanarm #howaboutaleg

If car break-ins and theft generated revenue for the complex, maybe they would care more about resident safety. Apparently trash is more important. I know crime can't be prevented but you would think some cameras or a gate would be installed at the very least.

Only pros of living here are the grill area, gym, maintenance, proximity to 147, and the fact that my apartment is decent looking with a nice layout and stainless steel appliances. Although it's kind of a pain to clean granite countertops. I could have found better for the same amount or less here in Durham or the surrounding counties and would have been far happier.

I've been here for just shy of a month. Everyone has been very friendly, especially Rowines and Sarah.

Maintenance is awesome.

The gym is great.

My apartment is nice.

The reasons for 3.5 stars instead of 5:

The parking situation, at least at my building in the back of the complex, really sucks. Granted, it's a big complex and there's even more being added on. However, we have people parking in spaces that aren't even parking spots, especially on weekends. This isn't my first time living in an apartment but I shouldn't have to park three buildings down if I'm not home before 6PM. That really sucks when I'm carrying groceries up three flights of stairs by myself. I never get a spot in front of my building unless I'm off for the day. All of the apartments in my building are not rented out so I don't understand why I can't ever get a decent spot.

People speed through the complex. I don't have children or any pets so I would be concerned, at least a little, if you do.

You can ONLY get Frontier as a service provider. Instead of paying $55/month with Spectrum, my internet bill is $80/month. That was the cheapest of the two packages if I'm not mistaken.

I'm not a fan of the mandatory $25/month valet trash service. (The dumpster is visible from my patio, I usually take my own trash since they only come between the hours of 6-8pm every day except Friday and Saturday, which is when I personally need trash removed the most.) I would feel it was worth it if they took cardboard and recyclables for you at least one day out of the week. I'd be willing to pay a little more for that.

My suggestion for the parking/speeding:

Adding a gate might be useful.

Add speed bumps in the complex.

Designate visitor parking from resident parking and enforce towing. At my old complex, residents took their vehicle registration cards to the office to receive a sticker that was displayed in their windshield. If you parked in a resident spot and didn't have this sticker, you were towed. I really think this might help, at least some.

It's not cheap to live here, and honestly I thought paying more to be on this side of Durham meant I would experience better quality apartment living. In some ways, I have. Overall, I'm happy to be here. I just hope some small things change...

The Marquis has been a decent place to live but this is not luxury. For the most parts the grounds are kept well. The location is convenient. The outdoor pool is always closing…lots of parties during the summer and residents have guests that don’t clean up after themselves. The “heated” indoor pool is always cold. The gym is way too small for the size of this complex. Ended up having to get a membership somewhere else. Application process and move-in was fairly smooth but as the days went by I just regretted more and more moving here. Before I moved in I was shown a 3D model and was told my unit looked exactly like it and it was NOT. I had moved from out of state, almost 10 hour drive and was exhausted so I didn’t want to deal with it. I specifically requested and was told I’d have a tub, this apartment has a stand in shower. It’s extremely hard to keep mold out. The wall is peeling in the bathroom and living room. Literally everything was moldy and dirty when I moved in. The carpet is not sealed properly so there are nails sticking out around the edges. The washing machine hadn’t been cleaned. The dishwasher smelled like sewage. The walls and baseboards were filthy and the paint is extremely cheap. The windows looked like they had never been cleaned. The HVAC system is full of black mold. So is the oven and the bottom of it where you store pans. The apartment is infested with huge red ants yet there is a pest control fee every month. The garbage is not always collected and of course there’s a fee for that too. I can’t enjoy my balcony because it’s full of wasp nests. The apartment is poorly built. I always cut my finger on top of the microwave when opening the spice cupboard. When you open the refrigerator door it hits the wall. You can’t pull any draws out to properly clean it either, so there’s sections in the refrigerator I can’t even use. It took them 2 months to change my filter as it was red upon move-in and they were trying to make me pay for a new one and I refused. My garage opener is constantly breaking. Sometimes I would not be able to use it for almost 2 weeks at a time because when I leave for work the office is not open and when I come home they are not open. The most recent time they fixed it I was told I could have made a repair order for it. After the 3rd time of having it fixed.. For $150 a month the garage opener shouldn’t even be breaking so often. I was excited to move here and have a new start but I always feel stressed coming home to ants and mold all the time after working 10-12 hour shifts. I’ve reached out to corporate several times about these issues because I know none of the leasing managers can really do anything..of course no response. Leaving this review because I have a feeling when I move out they’re going to try to charge me for these things even though I’m obviously leaving the apartment 1,000 times better than when I moved in. I work very hard to pay this almost $1700 a month for a 1B 1B. No reason I should have all these issues in a...