Phillips Pass Apartments — Local services in Houston

I will preface this review with the fact I work in the industry and have high expectations for how a property is managed, how residents are treated, and how maintenance should be handled. I also lived here in 2008 when it was The Retreat at Eldridge so I know what it looked like before. I did not have the following experiences back then. We have lived here a year. They were under “renovation” when we leased. Stainless steel appliances, new paint job on the outside, new name, new management, new shower heads that don’t point straight into the tubs so we always had to stand to the side of our tub to be under the shower. Old toilets that use too much water. We had new floors and carpet at move in and we were the first users of our kitchen appliances. We had a good move in special where our deposit and app/admin fees were waived. The leasing consultant who was there when we leased was gone within 90 days. The property manager does not like to deal with problems. She told me she “doesn’t like to babysit”. We had legitimate excessive noise complaints that led to us having to set up a meeting and the other resident didn’t show. Whatever, I ended up handling it myself. We have a 2 bedroom and it’s spacious but the kitchen doesn’t have enough cabinets or counter space. One drawer is rendered useless from the stove blocking it. This property is NOISY. Do not select an apartment by parking or the street, you will hear EVERYTHING. And I’m not just talking about Eldridge traffic noise, although you will hear every police and fire department sirens from here to Westheimer. You will hear the drag racing. You will hear vehicles all day long if near the parking. You will also hear full on conversations of your neighbors outside on the sidewalk but it sounds like they are on our patio. The doors are auto closing but nobody is conscious of just how loud they are so you will hear and feel patio doors slamming all day long. You will also hear the day to day living of your neighbors. I could hear my neighbors cabinets closing, chopping food, flushing her toilet. And this is with a TV on. That doesn’t bother me as that is standard apartment living but I have never heard it so clearly so if you need more peaceful living I would not choose this property. My son moved in with me and ever since he was added to the lease the balance due every month has increased for the last 5 months. I expected a change on the first and maybe 2nd bill for water allocation increase but not increasing every month with no explanation. If you need maintenance, forget about it. They are not thorough with the service requests. I turned on my heater for the first time this winter and it wouldn’t turn off when it reached the desired temp. I had to turn it off at the breaker because the thermostat was not responding and I submitted a service request. He came out, saw it was off and said “it’s fine what’s wrong”. Next time it happened, I didn’t touch it. I submitted a service request and all he did was change the thermostat and we still have the same problem. Since they won’t fix it properly, I manage it with the breaker. And they can handle it when we move IF they catch it on the turn. The NEW dishwasher has never dried when I did use it. The water heater stopped working two months ago-ish. I submitted a service request and all he did was increase the temp which is lazy and dangerous because I would burn myself forgetting they increased the temp. Fast forward to today in actual cold weather and the water heater is out again so now he’s here at 8 PM on a Friday night. I told them our ventilation fan in the bathroom was intermittently noisy. It wasn’t noisy when he visited so he left. Upstairs neighbors water heater busted and leaked to our apartment causing damage throughout the entire apartment. The repairs were done haphazardly and still have water stains and damaged Sheetrock. The contractor got paint and Sheetrock all over our small kitchen appliances and sofa even when I confirmed all was out of the way enough. Out of...

BITTER So this was first apartment since moving from my family. The apartment is very spacious and top of line appliances. It is a beautiful apartment. Maintenance is the best part about this apartment. They get things done within a matter of a day or two. Aside from that they have left a bad taste in my mouth. So about 6 months into renting my car broke down and I had to borrow the family back up vehicle. I travel for work and had been traveling for about 24 hours and was exhausted when I got home I forgot to put the parking pass on the vehicle. Next day the vehicle was gone. Prior to this I would never see anyone getting towed ever even the cars that I know was illegally parked under the carport. So I took the L and got the vehicle back. Parking has always been an issue for me. I would come in from work during the day and no free parking would be there because they allow tenants to give out multiple parking passes for days at a time to their guests. There was an incident where someone broke into the mailboxes and stole people's mail. The last thing that was it for me, they charged me $450 for a missed inspection that I missed because I wasn't home when the notices went out and had a lot going on at work so I didn't check the resident portal. When I asked what was the reason that the inspection team claimed they could not get in the unit for, they could not and never gave me answer. I thought this was strange because up until that point their maintenance workers have always had access to my unit uninterrupted whether I'm there or not. I also noticed they only call you when it's convenient for them. It just seems so weird that once I put in my notice to not renew I started getting charged for everything under the sun. At this point I'm just ready to move out and move back into my family home. Besides that you can enjoy living here. Basically the whole time I lived here they were just collecting rent from someone that was never home. As in I would be lucky if I even spent 10 days out of the month at home. And the valet pickup was another issue in itself. Within the first few months even up to eight months in I had major issues with the valet Trash getting picked up. I would put the trash out on time just as I was supposed to and the neighbor's would get picked up but not mine. Which you have to pass mine to get to the neighbor's. So in the morning when I'm leaving for the airport at 3am in uniform I'm carrying out the trash that should have been picked up. It got to the point where I started recording evidence of the issue and finally after months and two notices to the managers the trash was being picked up...

When first moving into this complex, I was quite hopeful that it would be a good experience as it was in a good area and at a very decent price. When moving in I quickly noticed that you could hear literally everything within a mile radius that was going on outside. The property management has obviously neglected to put in energy efficient widows and they are paper thin and let in any bit of heat or noise.

I then come to find that covered parking is $50 a month for rickety covering with spots fit for compact vehicles only. Good luck getting a suv or truck in that thing. This would be fine except most night I find that I have to park at the front gate and walk to the other end of the apartment complex because there are never enough free parking spaces for everyone to park while the covered parking is almost always empty.

To top off my premium rate for rent and parking, I have to pay $30 a month for a gate key or have the gate hooked up to my phone and call myself to enter. And you might be thinking, GREAT that sounds like good security. Well think again because in the 9 months I have been here the gate is broken for at least 3 days every other week. Come on in and steal some stuff and ill just continue to pay my $30 a month.

And here comes the best part, my electric bill for a 800Sq. Ft. apartment is over $200 a month for March April May and June. My A/C finally gave out and all I got from the lovely leasing agent Morgan were excuses and rudeness. When she finally gave in and sent someone out the A/C it came out that the unit was so old it had to run over time just to keep the apartment cool. Well that is good to know since I have been paying you to maintain a livable environment for me and I end up paying more to the electric companies. Not to mention it has broken three times since.

My best advice to you is to stay away from this complex. My best advice to the property management is to train your staff to be polite and not argue with me about my apartment when I am sweating while inside. This is absolutely ridiculous, and she repeatedly avoided my phone calls concerning the issue. THANK YOU MORGAN...