Rittenhouse Claridge — Local services in Philadelphia

The Rittenhouse Claridge Management is unethical and immoral and definitely untrustworthy. They require residents to sign their lease as is with no changes and then they refuse to stand by their own words in their own lease. The Management clearly violated multiple clauses of their own lease written in clear simple language to which there were no alternate interpretations available. They refused to abide by their lease over and over and over, despite multiple infractions of the lease made by my neighbors repeatedly and frequently over an 11 month time period making my life a living hell.

Before moving in the building management does not disclose to prospective renters the weird issues with the HVAC systems. The entire building has to be switched from heat to A/C centrally and it is a process that takes several hours and that residents have no control over. That means for 2-3 months a year a bunch of the apartments are at temps that require A/C and the others are at temps that require heat and the residents have no control over it. So every year for 2-3 months there are a lot of people who are way too hot or way too cold and the residents can do nothing about it. The building management tells people who are too hot to open their windows, etc.

I was physically attacked (severely bitten) by a dog in my own hallway by a dog who lived across the hallway. When I reported this to the building manager, his immediate response was to ask me literally, “Well what do you want us to do about it?” No shock, no apology, no sympathy and definitely refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever, nor are they going to hold the resident dog owner responsible at all. It was left to me to call 911, PA Animal, Control and the PA Department of Health to report the attacking dog because the building did nothing.

I lived in the building for four and a half years an not once were the exteriors of my windows washed. Not one time in four and a half years and they were filthy.

Residents are not allowed into the package room if a delivery person or a building employee is putting packages into boxes. These package room closures are completely random in time and frequency, so when you have to pick up a package you never know if you are going to be able to get into the room or not. Many times I had to go to the package room 2 or 3 times to pick up a single package, because the package room was closed when I got there. There is really no reason at all for these random and frequent room closures and the residents hate them. Over the years this practiced wasted my time many times and sometimes delayed me from picking up packages for...

I moved out of The Claridge about a year ago. When I first moved in, the noise was so bad from the park (horns, drums, bagpipes (yes, bagpipes!) that I wanted to move. The manager at the time did accommodate me and offered me an apartment as far away from the Square as possible and it was updated. Before I moved in, I saw the renovations and the ceiling looked bad - like it would fall down. The manager then decided to berate me saying that I was ungrateful and that he had done me a big favor. Geez, I thought he was being a good manager. The ceiling did get fixed but not because of the manager. Moving did take care of the noise though and I was happy. The desk and door people varied; some were great, some were not, based on attitude and service. I had good experiences with many of them. The office mode changed when the new owner took over. They became un-customer oriented and they seemed afraid to lose their jobs if they were not. The new gym and lounge facility was nice and was held out to be for tenants, but we could not use the kitchen, could not bring alcohol in for a party even if we rented the spaced or part of it (even though the owner had his own party(s) with kegs and other booze). When I tried to use the 1 locker they had outside the steam room, I thought it was erroneously locked, for months, I found out it was the owner's locker. He said there was no room for a second locker for tenants in the space. I told him I thought the amenities were for people in the building - his response was that he is a "people too". Right, but none of us had our own locker. After that, I got a letter saying The Claridge would not renew my lease. Guess the owner didn't like my questioning. The manager told me coldly that it was a business decision. Wow, that was a first - never experienced that before. I guess they showed me! I had been in the building in 2 apartments there for at least 6 years - when I moved out I cleaned it top to bottom and even saged it for good measure. There was 1 spot on the bedroom rug which I told them about. I had it cleaned several times, but it was a coffee spill with cream, and would not come out. They have yards and yards of carpet in storage (which they probably buy in bulk so it is cheap). The room was an average size bedroom. They took $600.00 out of my security deposit ($200 was for the carpet and $400 was for installation, according to the bill). Seriously? Wouldn't one spill on the carpet in a few years' constitute normal wear and tear? Probably not on an exotic antique persian rug, but at The Claridge, it...

Excellent location and very spacious apartments for the price especially given the location. Nice gym and community space as well as roof deck.

Unfortunately maintenance was very poor at communicating and several things took forever to get fixed, or were just never fixed. The thermostat in my bedroom was malfunctioning for the entire two years that I was there and it was never properly addressed. They put a hole in the ceiling of the kitchen to fix a leak for someone else and it was never fixed. They often leave a mess after fixing things (they left a mess after making the aforementioned hole in the ceiling, as well as after painting my bathroom).

Kitchen and bathroom were tiny and not much bigger in the larger apartments. Visibility into other peoples apartments is very high depending on your unit. Elevators were very slow. Walls were relatively thin (Could often hear my neighbor coughing/sneezing long into the night). If you're apartment faces the back alley/chancellor street there is TONS of noise from garbage trucks every day of the week. Management did not seem very interested in many of my complaints. I still tried to move into another apartment in the building because of the location, and they were extremely unresponsive to my requests to schedule a viewing. I thought this was very disappointing given that I already lived in...