Midtown One80 — Local services in Houston

Ghetto pool takeovers and weed smoking in amenity spaces every weekend tolerated by management.

8/18/24 Update: Unfortunately a lot of the progress that has been made is vanishing rapidly ever since Ruth the property manager left. There are loud parties at the pool that don’t get shut down again. The cleanliness of common areas such as hallways is very poor. The staff in the leasing office seems more interested looking at their phones and talking to each other for hours on end rather than actively serving the community and making sure the building is functioning properly and maintained. I’d think that rather than looking at their phones they’d do rounds and write violations for those that leave their trash on the brand new carpet that I’m sure the owner spent good money on. There are no restrictions on parking at all which makes it attractive for non residents to host pool parties, especially when several doors in the building remain unlocked. Also, RPM has now begun to charge residents for the building electricity, the electricity used in common areas. This fee is on top of your amenities fee which is already 50 bucks a month on top of your base rent. Hoping the owner that took over the property values the asset more than the prior owner and puts effective property management in place before this property goes right back to where it started before Ruth cleaned up a lot of the big mess.

Update: New ownership and property management have made a tremendous difference at this property. Ruth is a prime example that investing in an effective and competent property manager can turn a multi million dollar asset from turmoil to a success story. The property still needs a lot of work from the pure neglect of prior ownership and management but with the right team in place I’m confident that this will be a top tier property soon enough. ————————————————————————————— Been living here for over a year and the property management, Allied Orion, is wildly incompetent. I've seen it all here from women being beat in the stairwell to the pool looking greener than a retention pond for half the summer. See my summary of grievances bulleted below. All properties have their issues but I assure you that Dolce Midtown tops the cake for the Midtown/Montrose area, by far.

Building is not safe or secure. Many of the exterior doors and stairwell doors are busted and don't lock and that's been the case for over a year. The gates to the parking garage are constantly stuck open. Every car on my level of the parking garage had the windows busted open, including mine. The building has zero security and the vagrants in and around the community know that. Halls aren't consistently vacuumed as they were when Celtic was here. Pool has stains on the bottom. Halls smell like garbage and management never has the air freshener replaced. Only one elevator in the building which is frequently down. The latest outage lasted 7 weeks forcing myself to carry groceries up 8 flights of stairs. Property management refused to offer anything for compensation. -The amenities: not clean and usually taken over by people that don't even live here. The health department shut the pool down for over half the summer in 2022. People openly smoke weed and drink out of glass bottles that end up broken in the pool. Loud parties happen any day of the week at the pool and not the parties that'd you'd want to join in on, the parties involve people bragging about the most recent crime they committed or their recent time in prison (not exaggerating). building fire alarm system will go off every 2-3 months for hours at a time. Once it lasted 12 hours before management was able to shut it off. Made it impossible to sleep and work from home. management: when Allied and the property management Derrick took over they asked me for a list of things that need improvement around the community to improve. I gave them a simple list such as fix the front door to the building which is still broken several months into Allied Orion's tenure. Not a single item on that list has...

If you think that RPM Living is in the business of renting out and managing the Midtown One80 apartment complex, you are wrong. In fact, they are in the business of giving tours to the applicants, happily charging hefty application fees, and then smile, promise, then break their promises, lie, and essentially do nothing for you to move in. Here is my story.

I got referred to Midtown One80 complex by a locator, a very nice lady, who told me that it's a great place with a brand new management. Reviews were kind of mediocre, but most recent bad reviews were bounced by cheerful "that was all because of the old bad management, and we are here to makes things better" motto. The tour was indeed amazing. Lamaya and Santiago were smiley and friendly. They encouraged me to apply immediately, and so I did, with expectations that I'll be moving in the next few days. At least these were the expectations set by Santiago and Lamaya.

Then, the application just stalled. I had to travel to Canada for 2 weeks and then on a 3rd week, when I came back to Houston I still had no approval. The answer was that they were doing background check on me through First Advantage and it was dragging on. As soon as I heard that First Advantage was involved, I told them that they don't do international background checks. My employer was trying to do it through them, and once I called their support, they told me that they don't process applicants from Canada. So I applied on Royal Canadian Mountain Police website and got the results the same day. I suggested to Lamaya and Santiago to do the same and I had the clearance from 3 weeks ago, that I had no criminal history. They responded nothing to that and they did nothing. Another 2 weeks passed. My locator was calling them trying to see if they can use my RCMP background check, or call First Advantage for status, or try to use another provider. Finally she reached Ruth, manager of M180, and she called me promising to call FA and then call me back. She never did. I tried to reach her on that day, and got Luciano telling me that she was on the phone and again promised to call me back. And she never did again. My locator tried to reach Ruth again, she called her manager to RPM corporate office working hard for my case, trying them to do something about my stalled application and they collectively got very angry with her and stopped responding to her phone calls. Finally, I decided to move on, cancelled my application through Midtown One80 online portal, and rented apartment in another complex. A week after that, Lamaya wrote to me that First Advantage had responded back that they don't process international applicants and that she sent the application to another provider and they will get back with results in two days.

Amazing, right? Wasn't it exactly what I told them a month ago? I wrote back that I already rented in another place, and apparently their portal doesn't work either, since they didn't see my cancellation. I told Lamaya that I will leave them a bad review on Google and asked to return my application fee. They called me immediately and said that they will immediately send me the refund check. But a month has passed, and still I haven't received the check from them for the application fee refund. It was just another lie.

And guess what? The apartment I was applying for 2 months ago, #1513 is still available. They lost 2 months rent and I am a top IT professional, with top salary, working for an oil and gas giant, had to rent in another place, just because of what? Because they are lazy, close minded, discriminating, not caring about their job bad employees or because it's just RPM Living policy not to rent these apartment and just charge the admin fees from the applicants? The fees that they never intend to return back? Ruth, Lamaya, Santiago, Luciano and their managers, should I get police involved at this point?

I don't expect my money back, but as a moral compensation for wasted time, let this review hang in here forever, so people could think twice before applying to MT...

Images will be attached to support everything mentioned. Please review them before considering moving in. I moved into Midtown One80 Apartments in April 2025 and was forced to move out by the end of August, not by choice but for my sanity. This complex falsely advertises itself as luxury living, but what I experienced was the exact opposite—unsanitary conditions, pest infestations, poor maintenance, and unhelpful management. On day one, I started seeing large spiders coming out of the closets, laundry room, and even the balcony door. These were not harmless pests—they were big, aggressive, and constant. I also found millipedes with larvae in the bathroom, earwigs in the living room, and tiny bugs crawling out of the sink, making it impossible to safely leave basic items like toothpaste or soap. One night, I even woke up to a spider crawling on me. That’s when I knew I couldn’t stay. I immediately contacted the leasing office and requested pest control. They submitted a ticket, but due to poor coordination, nothing was done for over two weeks. Pest control claimed I needed to leave a key; the leasing office said I shouldn’t. Tired of waiting, I hired a top-rated pest control company at my own expense. The assistant manager, Santiago, was the only helpful person and got me a refund for the first visit. However, even after several treatments, the pests kept coming. I set out glue traps and started catching roaches. Gnats were another issue, constantly present inside the unit and common areas. I spent extra money on sprays, traps, and UV lights just to try to live comfortably. Other major issues included a filthy garage with water leaks, falling insulation, and puddles around reserved parking spots. The ceiling left white residue on cars, making car washes pointless. The garage door was frequently broken and left open for days, leading to security concerns and car break-ins. The elevator was often out of service, a huge inconvenience. Water shutoffs happened regularly, lasting from hours to an entire day, often without clear notice. The gym equipment was outdated, broken, and in poor condition. I even saw a resident bring tools to fix a machine just to use it. The elevator also smelled constantly—either like pet urine or garbage—because of valet trash residue. Instead of cleaning, they just sprayed Fabuloso to cover the smell. I eventually made the difficult and expensive decision to break my lease. I contacted RPM Living, the corporate company managing this property, and emailed the CEO directly. I even visited their Houston office and spoke with a manager named Dylan. He laughed when I mentioned the CEO and told me I wouldn’t hear back. He promised a follow-up by Friday. That never happened. I got no support, no solutions—just brushed off. To get out, I had to pay two months’ rent plus $3,176.04. That doesn’t include all the money I spent trying to resolve problems that should have never existed in the first place. I wouldn’t wish this experience on anyone. I do not recommend living here under any circumstances. This was one of the worst and most stressful living experiences I’ve ever had. To management: please don’t respond asking to “discuss further.” I reached out multiple times. When I needed help, no one showed up. Save the PR...