Hale Mahana — Local services in Honolulu

Well....I don't even know where to begin. We leased an apartment for my son and this year was his third year for renewal. I would HIGHLY recommend you get everything discussed in writing in emails and take anything promised through text or over the phone as if it never happened. Since the new owners bought the property in 2024 it has tanked dramatically. Especially from a management prospective. When we were up for renewal we were looking at moving to the new Greystar property on campus that was brand new and were sold a bill of goods for our son to stay his last year at Hale Mahana. They offered to make the rent more comparable to the new property by moving him to the same room on a lower floor. They dont actually place your room number and suite number on the lease so it give them the flexibility to do whatever they want. Just the unit type. When he got his email about his room we looked at the room number and they put him in a room half the size for the same rate as the previous year and not even the same set up a promised. After weeks of threatening to get legal involved, the decision was made to move him to a different room on the fourth floor and turn a double into single for him which at the time we thought was a fair compromise. It wasn't the same type of suite but they told us they had not more rooms like the room he was in and what he was promised through text. What they also failed to mention was the flooding that had continued to happen on the fourth and fifth floors like others have put in their reviews recently. On the airplane to Honolulu, my son received an email stating he had 24 hours to clean up the awful smell and mess in his room. The room he had yet to move into. He showed up and the room was a disaster, with a bathroom that was so unsanitary it was a health hazard. Nobody had even checked the room they moved him into nor was it cleaned. After two more scathing phone calls and two more emails, he waited while they brought out a professional cleaning team that did a great job cleaning the room. After an 8 hour flight and needing too unpack so he could go to sleep this was less than ideal but he made it work. We thought the worst was over and could just move on to finish senior year. The smells never really subsided on the floor, and when we came out and visited in October, there is still a musty moldy oder that can't be safe. There is still a cockroach problem which we understand is a Honolulu problem in general but exterminate please. The trash chutes are always broken, and in the past his moped was stolen twice right out of the garage under the camera while being locked which means security is lacking.

Now we have an issue with Conservice bill as its 6X higher than before! I cant get anyone to even email back at this point. Our next step is contact consumer protections in Hawaii for help. I could write three more paragraphs but the limit on the review is topping me. Please look...

If you are given the choice to live at Hale Mahana or not; choose not to. Hale Mahana appears to be a nice place for students to live, which is somewhat true. For me, the only positive aspects were the grills on the roof and convenient location near campus. They advertise this place as "student living" but may put any paying tenant into your apartment, no matter if they are affiliated with the schools in the area or not (make sure to live with people you know). You would think for about $1500 a month you would get a nice living space, but in reality, it is the opposite. When I first walked into my apartment, there was a huge puddle of water sitting outside one of the bathrooms, going into our main hallway. No hate on the hard-working maintenance crew, but it took nearly three months for the issue to be completely fixed. Once they found the leak (took around 2 weeks), they left holes in our walls for the remaining two months. The appliances are not sound as we had a broken microwave, cloudy hot water, and dryers that take two cycles to dry your clothes. Management was also reluctant to fix any issue that we encountered. When I moved out, I insisted there was nothing left behind. Nonetheless, I was stuck with $265 (to each tenant) worth of "cleaning fees". These charges were baseless as they charged us for trash bags they used to clean the place. In the lease agreement I signed in 2024, there is no stipulation that the tenant would be charged for Turnover Cleaning or Trash Charges. Section 27.1, which is specific to cleaning at move-out, states that the tenant will be liable for cleaning charges for items that are "that are soiled beyond normal wear (that is, wear or soiling that occurs without negligence, carelessness, accident, or abuse)." Even if you leave the apartment in better shape than when you arrived, they may still charge you. In my case, we left the apartment in good condition, but were still punished. I reached out to them to challenge these charges but was ignored, other than a notice for collection. On top of the cleaning charges, I was charged $8 for their insurance each month, despite having my own policy. To their credit, after reaching out twice about these additional charges, I was refunded. Adding to that, on each rent payment of almost $1700 they charged me $1.95 for a "convenience fee". The only thing that is convenient about that fee is that they get to squeeze out just a little bit more money. Even though UH Manoa student housing (Fraer or Johnson Hall) doesn't have in-suite kitchens, I would have much rather lived there, in hindsight. I can only assume similar situations at Rise as they are owned by the...

I am so incredibly disgusted by the lack of integrity this establishment and its staff have displayed in my past 6 months living at Hale Mahana. I have unfortunately had many displeasing/uncomfortable experiences here anywhere from disrespectful community advisors to unlawful room entries but this past experience has to be the slimiest. The first lease I signed was $1050 a month in 12 installments. In October I adopted a cat and registered him with the building and they asked me and my mom to resign my lease so they could add the ONE TIME $200 pet fee. Apparently the lease they had as sign raised our rent to $1350 without notifying us. Looking back at our bank statements we have not been paying $1350 a month we have been paying our original rate of $1050 (thank god). But now we went to resign our lease for the 2019-2020 school year because they offered the original residents their same rate if they resigned in a certain amount of time (which we did) and they are trying to get us to sign a $1350 a month lease claiming that it is our original price. Their system claimed I moved out earlier in the semester so it cancelled my lease so we had to resign a new one then as well. There is just an incredible amount of stress and confusion surrounding this community which is definitely not what I wanted to be dealing with my first year in college.

Update: I recently have had a meeting with two of the managers concerning my issues. They were much nicer to me than they have been in the past and it turns out that I signed two leases on the same day one for $1050 and one for $1350. They did not increase my rent when I signed the lease adding my cat. However, when the issue was brought up that I had been paying $1050 a month (which their system has been accepting as full payment) they told me that I would have to pay the rent I hadn’t paid from the last 6 months (over $2000). They did tell me they wouldn’t charge any late fees and I could pay it in increments but today I got a note saying I had an outstanding balance plus a late fee and they’d be adding $5 for every day the payment goes unpaid. I brought up other issues during our meeting including the privacy locks on our doors which don’t work. They told me they do the same things as they do in a hotel...they don’t do anything, anyone can still get in so I don’t even know why they bothered putting them on. Long story short, it’s been frustrating, I don’t feel safe here and I don’t feel like the staff genuinely cares about their residents apparently unless they post a negative review. I won’t be resigning my lease here, I would recommend any people reading this take it into...