Sound at Gateway Commons — Local services in East Lyme

We moved here in August 2017 from Virginia. We were so thrilled to find an apartment complex that was both beautiful and set back into the woods like back home. About a year in, the construction for Costco started. We have been very patient and do not complain about the construction because we knew this was coming. What we were not happy about was rent was increased almost 5% for our second year due to "market value increase". We like our apartment and didn't have any problems with the living quarters so we agreed to continue living here and pay the increase even though it is obvious the market value did not increase that much with the nearby construction. Fast forward another year and construction for The Sound phase 2 has started. Now we are sandwiched between 2 active construction sites as we live in building 14. Again, we knew it was coming so no complaint about the construction but our rent went up another 6%. When we went in to tell them there was no way the market value went up for an apartment between 2 active construction sites with blasting, they told us the demand for the complex was so high they have a waiting list, so we are welcome to leave. We believed them and so we started looking for other apartments. But we were only given ~2 weeks to re-sign or lose our rate. We were unable to find another comprable apartment in that time so we remained in the complex again. Since then, we have discovered that the complex is nowhere close to full. Little did we know that the first 2 months of our third year here would be spent arguing with management about water leaks from aparments above us. We have had 3 leaks in the past 2 months, and all 3 leaks have been handled in a completely innapropriate and unprofessional manor. For the first two leaks, we had to threaten to call a plumber and send them a bill to get someone to come and fix it. Now for the third leak, we currently have mold/mildew growing on the ceiling and they have yet to come and even look at the damage. It has been 26 days today since that third leak happened. We call and visit the office at least once a week to find out what the hold up is on the repair on our ceiling and we haven't received a straight answer, just a promise that it will be fixed. We are afraid to use the light because the ceiling is obviously still has water. We were told "well you have another bathroom." I reminded them I was paying for 2 bathrooms! We are incredibly frustrated with the timeliness and professionalism The Sound at Gateway Commons has had since we re-signed our lease for the 3rd time. If things continue, we will have to figure out a way to get out of our lease like some of our neighbors have...

Greetings and thank you for taking the time to read my review. I have lived at the Sound for two years. The first year and a half when it was owned by Konover it was a fabulous place to be. Sadly, we were bought out by another company in February and the property and service rapidly declined.

One of the changes management made was to change our water and sewer billing provider. In doing so many residents started seeing extremely high and outrageous bills.

In early June I contacted management who said they would look into it and I did not need to pay until the issues were resolved.

In mid June there was a management change so I contacted the new manager. I provided her with past bills so she had a comparison to work with. I was told she would look into it and get back with me. Two weeks passed and I had not heard of a resolution so I called again. This call did not go as I had hoped instead Kia Brown the property manager of the Sound and Cove at Gateway Commons yelled I talked to conservice and there is no issue with your bill and slammed the phone down on me.

I called back the office looking for the phone number for upper management as clearly nobody deserves to be treated like that. Everyone deserves respect. She refused to give it to me.

On the same day, she writes a non-renewal lease letter and opened my locked mailbox and put the letter in there.

I spoke with the head of the water dept in East Lyme and he confirmed that my unit was on the list of meters that was provided to management that were not sending usage. The meter needs to be repaired/replaced or manual readings need to be conducted.

The request to have this done was placed weeks ago and still has not been completed.

On the first of this month after paying my rent I noticed there was a past due balance on my account that was subject to late fees. When inquiring about the past due balance for a second time they finally responded it was due to the water bills not being paid.

What they are hoping for is that I don’t pay it so they can serve me an eviction notice like they have done to several other tenants over the past several weeks who have reported problems.

I have tried contacting their head office in NJ and they are non...

Don’t read any 5 star reviews as they’re fake, read the most recent 1 star reviews and it’s not too far fetched! This “luxury” apartment is FAR from luxury. The dumpster is always full even the recycling. People leave mattresses at the dumpster and it sits for weeks and even put recycling in the trash area. Packages are put in the main office and they always go missing (Assuming that’s a problem since they needed to put that in the lease that if packages go missing it’s not managements fault even though they are the ones who accept the packages). Amenities suck, the pools were shut down a handful of times this summer from kids pooping and getting sick, one time there was too much chlorine they had to get a pool company here to fix the levels, turning all blonde hair green. Dogs bark 24/7 or even bark at you walking by an apartment building. Sometimes you can’t even enter the dog park if someone is already in there and they say that their dog isn’t friendly, and dogs lunging at people walking. The Cove can use any of our amenities as nothing is locked but Sound does not have any access to Cove amenities as Cove things ARE locked. Also read the lease 100% if you ever want to move out to break the lease because it’s awful here, you have to pay 2 months of your base pay as a fee for breaking the lease even though they also keep your security deposit. You also have to give them 60 days notice. If you want “luxury” this is definitely not the place. Put your money into something better!! RUN! People are always moving out of here and they always have a special on their website if you move in before a certain date you get a month free. If you move out before your lease you also have to give back that free month they gave you… just...