Carvel Harbour Pointe — Local services in Mukilteo

Pros: The grounds were beautiful and very well kept! The apartment was quite polished and very nice with amenities such as granite countertops, updated cabinets and vanities, and new wood/pergo floors! Decent closet space too. And contrary to some other reviews here, we had a very positive experience with Bailey, one of the office managers! She was always quite pleasant to us, as well as helpful and accommodating! Maintenance staff was JUST TERRIFIC! One gentleman was always friendly and helpful, and I just adored Sylvester when he was there! SUPER helpful and accommodating! Not too crazy about his replacement though, as I move on to the cons of this place.

Cons: Yup, this is the largest section of my review. Said apartment was quite small for the amount of rent we paid for the duration of our lease. The balcony was microscopic! Before the beginning of our lease, we were shown a model apartment which was bright, airy and beautiful! Yet when we moved into our own apartment, I felt like a medieval dungeon would have had better light that this! And the corridor to our apartment was like walking through a black hole even on the brightest of summer days! Nothing says deception and wolves in sheeps clothing like showing one apartment and moving into something totally different! Also the other office manager besides Bailey I felt was brash, at times rude, and left way more to be desired than their other coworkers. Now the icing on the cake. This complex’s policies. I’ve lived in places where folks need to enter your living quarters 1 time maybe 2x a year at most. This place, they entered our apartment AT LEAST 6 times during our year lease! It’s bad enough having it happen at the most 2x a year, but there’s NOTHING like having strangers strolling through your dwelling, your living quarters with only three days notice if that, and at least 6 times a year no less! Then there’s the ever-ongoing parking policy here. Nothing says convenience to residents when every single time we had someone come over our house, whether it was many family members during holidays, or the annual visit from a volunteer from an organization your son belongs to, to have to get the make, model and license plate # of EACH AND EVERY ONE of your guests cars in order to get a guest parking pass from the office for them. Because if you didn’t have this info for the office, they would not issue it to you. And if your guest did not have this pass, they risk having their car towed. Yeah...way to come up with a super-efficient policy for guests to park their car and residents that already pay exorbitant amounts of rent for you Carvel! Gee heaven forbid we try something like a parking lot exclusively for guests or something like that! Perhaps that’s too easy?!

And we would get emails from Carvel that left me dumbfounded! Particularly the one that said even if you’re in a car accident (disregarding whether or not you are severely injured in said accident), that you are still responsible for your parking permit and if you didn’t obtain it after the accident you owe Carvel $500.00 for it! This was particularly reprehensible when at lease’s end, we were told to just throw this $500.00 sticker away! And there were other outlandish emails from them, but I could be here forever! And do read the other reviews that complain of this place and it’s policies, particularly around parking. I can verify they ABSOLUTELY have merit!

Conclusion: While we were fortunate enough not to have many issues with this place directly (others were not so fortunate, read the other reviews), it was quite clear to us after we moved in here that their policies regarding MANY things were downright unfair, borderline discriminatory/classist, and not well thought out at all! It was corporate greed and bullying at its finest! I do not recommend anyone move here if looking to rent in the amazing, lovely community known as Mukilteo! I’m sure you could find a much brighter, more spacious apartment somewhere else for the same amount of rent with hopefully no outrageous,...

I wouldn't recommend this complex, please stay away.

We've stayed there for 1 year and 3 months, my partner and I have never experienced so badly managed apartments with so ridiculous regulations and hidden fees.

Their demo apartment is much nicer than the actual one: paint in the demo one is different, it has accent walls and airy curtains. The actual one was dark and dull with old blinds. Please pay attention where in the complex your future apartment is. Our windows were facing the highway side, and despite the trees it was very noisy at night because of traffic. Apartments on the other side of the complex must be much quieter (e.g. building 9-10) and possibly would've been a completely different experience. On the other hand, the noise from the airplane field was rather rare and din't bother us much. Their maintenance "department" is a joke. When we moved in, one cabinet in the kitchen was missing a door (it was stated in our move in papers, too), they said they ordered a new one and would fix when it arrives. It was never fixed despite our multiple reminders. Their maintenance guy came several times to take measurements again. In about a year when we enquired about it once again they said they are not aware of the problem as we never lodged a maintenance request through their online portal. The missing cabinet door wasn't a huge inconvenience but their constant lie about the fact they are "ordered and waiting for the new part to arrive" didn't sound trustworthy. We moved in in August when it was warm and din't check the heaters. Once we turned on the main heater in November it started to release smoke from the wall and almost caused fire. We let the management know about the problem immediately, but it took them almost 2 months (very cold winter months!) to get it fixed after several repeated requests. To change paid parking arrangement you have to give them huge notice in advance (30 days if I remember correct) and will end up paying extra month because of that (e.g. I sold my car and din't need my parking space but had to pay for the empty one anyway, possibly they could do it faster and give my slot to someone who actually needs it?) Ridiculous and not obvious fees for little things like not returning them a parking sticker from a car (I accidentally sold my car to the Eastern WA with the sticker) and the guest parking permit sign are just enraging. $200+ for a piece of paper? You can do better, I am sure. If your permit system is bad, please don't make tenants pay for it, use technology for God's sake. Already mentioned in other comments: they never try to call the owner before towing the car away. It is a huge inconvenience and cost to get the car back, mostly people park incorrectly because of mistake or misunderstanding, not because their bad will. Please be humane at once and try to contact people and solve the problem politely before creating more trouble for them. When you move out you have to pay until the end of the month, they don't refund the reminder if you move out earlier even if you give them notice (they require 20 days) - this was a surprise, and felt like a scam. Why I have to pay for extra days I didn't use the apartment? We meticulously patched all little holes in walls after hanging pictures when we were moving out, and painted with provided by them paint, yet they charged us for partial re-paint of the apartment. The swimming pool was mostly closed.

Overall these apartments left very bitter feeling of disappointment. My recommendation to the management would be to review their fees and make them more transparent, also improve their inefficient and bureaucratic processes. It's pretty cowardly to keep the rent relatively low, and then make people pay the hidden fees for small unexpected things. Please work with your tenants, not...

This apartment complex is extremely managed and if you want to find out yourself go ahead, yet beware! The UPS and USPS as well FedEx delivers packages to the main office instead of directly to the apartment, while sometimes that is a convenience, yet somehow every Rx package ends up missing? When office staff is asked about it, their response is "they never received it," yet a confirmed signature states otherwise. Even when you want to get a package during normal business hours stated on their door it is locked, and the two managers sit on the couch playing Mario Brothers video game!

Doesn't the upper management team of GrayStar even monitor their employee's? The management team has even gone as far as laugh at their own violation of the policy of having a pet without it being documented. This is disturbing when they end up fighting with tenants about having pets and cleaning up after them, yet they, themselves will not lift a finger to maintain a clean health grounds.

While having a handicap health problem from being a Military vet, they are more concerned with making money on changing handicap parking to paid parking. The limited parking is bad enough and then violating local laws by removing handicap parking to 1 spot per building and refusing to add more even upon request which is the law to do, yet they don not care about military vets like myself.

If you also like your privacy forget about that as well as they always enter your apartment when you leave. Once I came home, and maintenance staff got dirty and decided to use my shower! At least someone did and at the same time left a dryer part on the counter which would be hard to understand a person would break into my apartment leave a dryer part and take a shower.

Once my water heater stopped working, and it took the act of God to get them to fix it as it only allowed a shower use of 2-3 minutes. So do you really want to rent from these people? With unexpected entry of your apartment, poor maintenance, poor parking, stolen items delivered, failure to maintain proper office hours, and extremely large increases to a lease after one year.? But they have a gym and a pool, although they do not monitor the pool as once I was standing in the office talking about a missing box of Rx's and a young man was standing at poolside peeing in the pool. I pointed it out, and the manager just laughs and states they are always peeing in the pool. Never gone swimming since, and the gym was broken into, and a woman was nearly raped while alone in the gym. But they now have fake cameras so you and your loved one will be protected.

Go ahead rent from them feel the protection and violation once you...