Park Place Apartments — Local services in Mountain View

I may have been one of the tenants with the longest stay at Park Place Apartments. So why live here this long, if only rating one star? This is primarily due to the location, i.e. proximity to Mountain View downtown. And that I knew I would eventually relocate out of the state, so moving would just be too much overhead.

What really annoys me about Park Place Apartments is the persistent below par service and response from the management team. For the very high cost of living here, one has a right to expect above average service. Instead they always respond with boiler plate placating verbiage, just to avoid any real responsibility and action. They very rarely admit and apologize for obvious mistakes.

Here are some of the points which has eroded my appreciation for this place over the years:

1. incompetent assistance with many small tasks like making a package hub work correctly, making numerous mistakes when reprogramming access fobs thus causing lockouts, reprogramming callbox number incorrectly, not being able to disable mail billing, not fixing callbox ghost calling to my apartment, not fixing entry doors which won't close, not monitoring garbage chute clogging, not monitoring the pool heater, not monitoring the garbage compactor malfunction, not pro-actively clearning areas of uncollected postal packages, not properly informing apartment renovation crews about noise etiquettes, not advising in advance about noisy renovation projects in adjacent units, sometimes entering ones apartment without proper notice. The list is longer.

2. not really maintaining the apartment complex to a beautiful state. Stairs are quite dirty, there are very few flowers in the internal court yard, plants and gardening quite uninspired and boring. The place feels like in decline.

3. they keep using very noisy leaf blowers every week, triggering huge dust clouds which cover everything outside on ones deck, and triggering asthma. Multiple pleas for using something else have been consistently ignored. Using leaf -blowers- in such a confined space is really unconscionable.

4. whenever management undertake "projects" it's often just to attract new renters, not to improve life for existing dwellers. And the projects ALWAYS run over duration estimates by 50-100%, thereby for example closing down the gym for 4 months (unnecessarily I might add), or leaving areas in a mess for half a year.

5. not updating / improving apartment units of existing dwellers to current standards. Due to my long tenure here I do not have an Air Condition unit, which is intolerable given the many heatwaves of late. They insist that I move to another unit for that to happen. Ok, sure - just like that.

6. when one day management unexpectedly and unannounced uprooted all trees and plants in the inner courtyard of my building due to some water leak, they promised to plant back the same as it was before. That would be very far from the truth. My unit had shady trees around the deck. Now it's completely bare and neighbors on the other side can look right into my unit, unless I close the curtains.

These points are just the most flagrant. I would not really recommend this place to anyone anymore, unless service is improved or the rent is lowered...

Living here requires an exceptional level of tolerance for ongoing issues, safety, maintenance, noise, because communicating problems to the management team is incredibly frustrating. Management often deals with complaints by simply postponing their response and actions, and eventually residents will give up. Many residents either quietly suffer or are forced to band together when things become unbearable.

The management lacks humility, honesty, and a proactive problem-solving mindset. Unless the issue affects their commercial tenants when they would treat it as "emergency" and jump right it , they treat individual complaints as isolated, low-priority matters. The male stuffs in particular arrogant, often speak down to residents like he's the boss and he's rebuking his reports, frequently only saying what he wants to say, yet not helpful and with inappropriate comments, very emotionally reactive and exhibit a self-righteous attitude—as if they’re always right and tenants are simply knowing nothing (so hilarious when most residents here are definitely more knowledgable). They tend to shift blame onto residents or City rather than take accountability, even when people clearly point out their service gaps. Yet he is not willing to accept their omission, never admit any fault.

Rat situation was not new but they were treated as isolate incidents until their dear commercial team also report it. Despite continued reports from residents, management misdirects residents, resulting long delays. After the bait stations finally being installed, them and Pest control doesn't proactively monitoring and put them in the effective places. For example, in Building 3, rats have been spotted in the courtyard, but bait stations are only placed outside external gates—nowhere near the reported activity, and the gate doesn't have any gap underneath. Worse yet, that manager conceals these shortcomings rather than addressing them transparently when people point it out. He even blamed and lied to a girl who has been seriously affecting for weeks: " You need to trust the procedure. We are just preventing the rats from coming inside. You just want us to waive our magic wand to resolve everything overnight? You cannot work with us? " This is shocking. Maintenance quality is also substandard. Appliances sometimes break down, and instead of repairing them properly, the response is a shrug and a claim that it simply can’t be fixed. This passive and dismissive approach only worsens ongoing problems and erodes trust in their ability—or willingness—to manage the property...

I've been living here for a week now, and there are several issues I want to complaint about. Firstly, concerning package delivery: As someone living on the third floor in a building without an elevator, I was particularly concerned about how my packages would be handled. Before signing the lease, I repeatedly confirmed with the leasing office whether my packages would be delivered to my front door, and was told they should be. However, after moving in, I discovered that all residents are forced to use the Amazon Hub located in the basement. If you don't activate your account, you can't retrieve the delivery codes, resulting in packages just sitting there. Larger packages that don't fit are not taken upstairs by the courier, which is very inconvenient for residents without elevator access.

Furthermore, my FedEx packages have never been delivered upstairs, regardless of their size. Despite raising these concerns with the leasing office, the only solution provided was to register my account with specific delivery instructions for the front door. Unfortunately, packages continue to be left in the mail room or sometimes even outside of the complex door.

Secondly, the response time for service requests is frustratingly slow. I submitted a request about my dishwasher on Friday, which is the dirtiest I've ever seen with yellowing and rusted racks, and it fails to dissolve dishwasher pods properly, leaving dishes as dirty as before. I was informed today, next Tuesday, while not at home, that the service had been completed. However, upon returning, I found that absolutely nothing had been done.

I am extremely disappointed with the management's lack of action and disregard for resident convenience. It feels like the delivery system particularly benefits the courier at the expense of the residents. Considering the price, I’m regretting that I didn’t choose a place with elevator and...