The Left Bank — Local services in Philadelphia

Just to be clear: i post this review only with the hope that no other college student who is already tight on money/time, or any other person for that matter, has to go through the experience i did. I don’t even know where to begin...

The ceiling leaked orange liquid every time it rained. The mgmt was obviously aware of the problem b/c the damaged spots had been painted over before move in as we later realized. As a result, water damage and rotted wood present. I even had a neighbor who's ceiling completely collapsed as a result. Many of their belongings were ruined and they were forced out of the unit. I felt so bad for them.

"Common electric fees”: One month my electric alone was over $150 and I had been on vacation that month with A/C and lights off!! I can't even imagine what my neighbors’ bills were like. The fees were not clear and couldn’t be explained by the bill.

There were several times when I would get an email late the night before from mgmt stating they were shutting off the water or the A/C that night. No heads up and occured during hot days during the Spring and Summer.

The management lied to me about renovations upon touring. A month or so after move in, I get an email that they will begin remodeling the roof and facade work. I live on the top floor so that's kind of a big deal.... CONSTANT BANGING at 9am and all throughout the day.

The dryer vents back into the apartment so the air quality sucks, dust everywhere (and I am a clean freak) and its evident when the filter on the A/C unit becomes filthy in less than a month.

The water from the tap/sink is gross. (see attached picture)

Centipedes, cockroaches, pill bugs; just one of many occurences. This actually didn't surprise me based on all of the water and dampness. (see attached picture)

Maintenance is super nice at first impression but they NEVER follow up. I had to contact the manager because no one was taking my requests seriously. She tried to make it seem like it was my fault that nobody had helped me. I brushed it off even though it was super rude. She personally contacted maintenance to inspect the leaks and water damage, in which they finally came to EXAMINE but NEVER FIXED IT even after i tried to contact them again. (attached picture, taken at move out)

The toilet clogged after every flush.

Luxer One Package System: the one year i spent living here, they charged me over $400 in fees for “holding” my packages, many times for ones I had already picked up. I called the customer service several times to tell them it was a mistake and they told me there was nothing they could do.

After experiencing all problems listed above, i reached out to leasing agent, Seiyla Vonn, about moving to a different unit. She answered my first email, but as soon as she asked me why I wanted to move units, she NEVER responded and ignored all future emails. And note i couldn't have been nicer and more understanding about it at the time. She also left a "fake" review on this page during that non-responsive time.

In the end, even after walking downstairs myself and talking to mgmt, nothing was ever ultimately done to help me. They would not let me out of my lease early and told me they would only charge me $1000 last month rent as a “courtesy” for my troubles and then never lived up to it. Instead i was charged the full amount even though i am not living here now. YES, it was so bad that i paid for 2 apartments this month because i couldn’t take it anymore. I am a very understanding person, but this is the worst experience i’ve ever had and I am very disappointed that a company would do business like this. The pictures speak for themselves but don’t do it justice. Every week it was a new problem or disruption, or someone unexpectedly knocking on my door to inconvenience me, not to mention the fact that they deceived me and took my money in such an untruthful way.

Goodbye Left Bank, I will not miss...

I've been at the Left Bank for a month and have been slowly moving in before living there full time, so this is a review in progress (I'll update it if things change). The tl;dr is that, while the building has seemed pretty nice so far, it has felt difficult to trust or rely on management.

Maintenance:

I'm starting with this because it is the main reason for the poor review. We submitted several maintenance requests almost a month ago, and management keeps telling us somebody is coming to fix them, but nobody ever does. Mind you, a lot of these things probably should have been done before we moved in. I've tried to be patient, and have sent several follow-up emails, but when you are told by the leasing agent that maintenance usually responds to requests in a couple days, this kind of thing gets a bit frustrating. We've only been here for the month, so they could just be swamped right now, and if things improve I'll be sure to update the review. But so far it has not been good.

Management:

This leads me to the management and staff. I'll start off by saying that both the management and the concierges have always been polite and friendly. The concierges in particular have always answered our emails promptly and helpfully. I wish this could be the whole review.

However, we have had several problems with management both during the leasing process and as we've lived here (see maintenance).

About half of the things the leasing agent told us were outright false, the most impactful of which was denying the existence of community utility fees on top of normal utilities (they very much exist and they are per person). Whether this was simply ignorance (everybody makes mistakes) or outright lying, the fact is it means you can't really trust their leasing agents. It's a shame because the agent was otherwise a pleasure to work with, but if you can't trust them, there is really no point.

The building:

The building itself seems relatively well maintained. They have a great gym and pretty nice amenities. The hallways smell a bit, but that might just be a common city apartment thing.

Even though the street outside is busy and loud, we live in an inside-facing room on a low floor and have had zero issues with noise. We also haven't had issues hearing neighbors, though we haven't been here full-time and think the building might be a little bit less populated during the summer due to school being out.

I hope that helps! I know finding a place can be stressful, so I wish you good luck on...

I live on one of the upper floor, central facing apartments and I love the apartment space itself. It’s well laid out, and it’s quiet. Maintenance is wonderful. However, AND this is a major however, I would not recommend anyone signing up to live here. I have never seen Management so unresponsive and proud of their unresponsiveness and unprofessionalism. There are so many issues that I don’t even know where to begin, so I apologize for how disorganized this review is. But please do read through it, because will have very useful information.

They have cut down the security from being 24 seven at the front desk to only overnight, and I don’t even know what time that person leaves. No one at the leasing office will ever respond to any questions or concerns. They are extremely rude and only care about getting more people to sign-on. They will completely forget you ever existed once you sign-on (they don’t even wait till move in day to show their true colors). They didn’t even coordinate move-in day, I had to come here the day before my move-in day to figure out the details (yup, no one sent me ANY information). That’s how horrible they are and a harbinger of what is to come. The mail system is a complete disaster. They use something called luxor, but 15% of the packages are just left willy-nilly outside in the mail area. The locker system is supposed to be used to send out mail, but everyone just leaves it behind the front desk because none of the mail carriers use the locker system (so packages are unsafe). The amenities are average at best. The gym is decent, but all the other spaces are just OK. The amenity rooms have a TV but no cable in any of the rooms (and the rooftop and theater and broken or unavailable to use a good portion of the year). The elevators break down EVERY month, multiple times a month. And worst of all in addition to the extreme unprofessionalism and disorganization, they are very dishonest. When you sign-on, they tell you that the amenity fee is 500. But what they fail to tell you is that you will be charged anywhere from $100-$150 per month for common living area fees. And if all this wasn’t enough, they will brazenly ask you to renew your lease 5 to 6 months before the end of your lease, and if you don’t immediately jump on, they will prelease your apartment to other people and not even tell you. Such a disappointment living here. Would not recommend anyone signing on unless you’re OK with Management that is nonexistent and...