The Susanne - Montrose Apartments — Local services in Houston

My girlfriend and I moved here about a month ago and so far it's been great. The obvious benefits are the HEB across the street and incredible location in Montrose right off Westheimer and a few minutes from 59. The location to Westheimer bars and HEB cannot be preached about enough. Also, Leslie in the office has been nothing but awesome for our entire move and has always remembered us, asks how things are when she sees us, and is super helpful with any questions we have. They also give you your own collapse-able cart to wheel to HEB so you don't have to carry your groceries home. The gym, hallways, common areas, and mail room are always clean (I came home one day and found the maintenance crew mopping the individual tiles between the columns in my hallway!). The main complaints you see online are for parking, gates, security, and hot water.... Let's talk about water & gravity first; it's a boiler system on the roof which ensures we never run out of hot water. So, of course, if you live on floor one it will take a minute for hot water to reach your apartment. You agreed to rent an apartment on the lower level, not their fault but rather yours. Parking; its a new apartment complex so all the amenities are new but this also comes with the fact that not all the kinks and rules have been established so parking has changed. Now, if you got screwed out of a parking spot but agreed to live on the lower level while knowing that guest parking was on 1 & 2 then that's also on you. (It should be noted that we received a parking spot on our apartment's floor) Also, they recently started a new policy where if a resident is caught using a guest parking spot they will be fined to ensure that all guest spots actually go to guests rather than lazy tenants who don't want to drive down the parking garage before work. Now the guest parking has been plentiful ever since.

The gates and security are my only complaint and why I gave it 4 stars instead of 5, but again it's a new apartment complex so all the kinks are still being worked out. I believe that the apartments were vandalized around Xmas, when B&E's drastically increase mind you, & happened on the ground floor which provides easy access to criminals if a resident let's them in without a clicker. All doors require a clicker, even on the top floors and from the parking garage, so somebody had to let them in.... I'm not justifying the break-ins as they did freak us out a bit, especially for how much we pay in rent...The gates are my only real complaint but they have fixed them relatively quick each time. I will say that for a "luxury" apartment without valet you would think they would invest in premier gate equipment to ensure its flawless operation but it has broken down a few times. That being said, I have not seen the resident gates down in over 3 weeks so hopefully it is finally resolved after being down a few times in the first week or two of moving in. Then last week the entrance gate on the Dunlavy side was down, but for less than 24 hours. Things break, I understand this, and I will acknowledge that their response time has been very prompt each time.

Overall, I'm extremely happy with my apartment and the building. The amenities are all very nice and taken care of. We chose the 1 bedroom with an office and love it. We haven't had any problems with noise as the building is solid concrete construction rather than wood. I would 100% recommend living at the Susanne. If the gates remain fixed I will come change my rating to 5 starts in a...

I've been a resident at the Susanne since Summer 2015. I'll break my review down from outside of the community to inside. Overall, it's a 3.5 to 4/5 and I'm happy with my experience.

Neighborhood 5/5 - Montrose is the best community in Houston, and with the HEB being right across the street, the location of the complex can't get any better.

Parking Garage/Parking 1/5 - By far my biggest gripe with the community is the parking. Every other similar type of community has a section for visitor parking, a section for reserved parking, and then after a certain level is first come, first serve resident parking. The Susanne has decided to have assigned spaces for all residents which, in my opinion, has many more cons than pros. The reserved spots correlate with the floor you live on, so, in my case, I pay the most money for a similar type apartment in the complex, and have to drive up and down 8 floors every morning and night. The turns in the garage are very narrow, and difficult for two cars to pass. I park in a car port, or, if my girlfriend is occupying the car port (only one reserved space per bedroom), an uncovered spot on the top floor. The alternative is to pay $75 extra per month for a 2nd floor reserved spot, which is what I do because I have a newer sports car, and don't want to hit the 3 inch (yes, I measured them) speed bumps every half-floor. Management must have saw this as an excellent opportunity to make extra cash pretty easily, so they expanded the reserved spots to include most of the visitor parking. Since everyone on the top floors has the same feelings, (and some of the taller trucks can't get through the gate) they sold out very quickly.

Front office 5/5 - Always courteous and responsive to inquiries/concerns, the front office makes a great impression when you walk through the leasing office doors and continues that impression indefinitely.

Facility Build/Community 3/5 - The Susanne is an average build for a luxury apartment community. It has a nice pool, nice weight room, and community rooms. My biggest complaint with the build are minor annoyances with my apartment specifically (such as the tile being uneven in the bathroom) and that the elevators are intermittently down. Another grievance is that the entrance to the visitor gate is too small, so if moving vans park in that area or the dumpsters are pulled out (which they frequently are), it is extremely difficult to get by. We have constant issues in my apartment with water damage, especially in the bathroom and outer bedroom wall. However, the maintenance is quick to fix any issues. Also, again, minor things like my bedroom ceiling fan being extremely noisy, are possibly limited to my apartment.

Maintenance 5/5 - Always responsive. They've been quick to fix whatever issue I've had in the apartment so far.

Community events are a nice little touch, though, I rarely get to go due to work. It seems like we have one every month or two.

Security has been great, and I haven't had any problems. I've only had to make an excessive noise complaint once, and they handled it within a...

Update: I have lived here for 1 year and half and only moved out because we bought a house. Over the past 1.5 years, I have lived in both the 1-bedroom and 2-bedroom apartments and both are amazing. Believe it or not I'm actually sad to leave this apartment complex to move into a house! I have NEVER worked with any front office staff as amazing as the Suzanne staff members. Even though they didn't have to help me at all during the move-out process (the contract says I'm responsible for rent until the end of the year), they quickly found a replacement and plan on returning the rest of the rent back to me. Our dog caused some damage to the carpet and it was only charged a very appropriate fees for repair and cleaning from the initial deposit. I don't think I've ever encountered any issues that they didn't immediately or quickly address from the day I moved in to the day I moved out. I would definitely refer every single one of my friends looking for a luxury apartment to live here.

Initial posting: The leasing office and management staff are amazing. I moved here from out-of-state for work in the medical center and picked an apartment room randomly without looking. When I shipped boxes over ahead of time, they put them all inside the apartment so they were waiting for me when I arrived. I was unfortunate to have picked a unit directly above the AT&T server fans so it was quite loud when all the fans start working together. When I brought this to the manager (Jennifer)'s attention, she gave me various options, including installation of double window or move to a different apartment. I essentially toured the apartments again and chose one facing the pool/HEB this time. It is now way quieter than before and I am so happy that the management allowed that option, even though it added more work for contract paperwork etc.

The building itself is made of concrete so it insulates sounds very well between the walls and floors. I almost never hear anything from my neighbors. That being said, concrete buildings tend to transmit outside sounds much better, and there is still this humming high pitched background noise/vibration even after the move and it is probably coming from the building or HEB A/C generators. I wish the windows here have better sound insulation, but if I just turn on the A/C fans at night, it drowns out the sound and I can fall asleep. Since no one else commented about it, I bet I'm just more sensitive to high-pitched sounds/vibrations when it wouldn't bother others. Anyway, it's an apartment complex in the city across from a convenient supermarket so I can't really complain. I've lived here for a few weeks now and have really enjoyed all other aspects of being here, from the amenities to the amazing...