The Sterling Apartment Homes — Local services in Philadelphia

My first 4.5 years here I would rate this place 4 stars. I never had an issue with maintenance, never had any break ins, neighbors were excellent … basically close to no complaints. It wasn’t until year 6 I fell short due to having my new born and ask them to give me a few months to catch up while paying towards what I owed. One manager(corey) told me that was fine after I have $2000 towards a $4000 rent. I then gave that same manager $5000 towards my tab only for them to turn around and ignore me after mediation. Literally have emails that they never responded to, texts never responded to oh and the manager will blocked me off his phone that he uses for work! I’ll show all of this on my social media and tap back in here with my handle so you can all see before making a choice to live here. Let’s keep in mind I wasn’t working I was on maternity leave as well so I literally wasn’t trying to get over I just needed help from them for a few months. We are human and we know things happen however we still want the place we live to treat us as humans and not robots. I received a letter for mediation which was left at my door, not in the mailbox but on the floor in front of my door for others to see, NO PRIVACY! I went to mediation and their lawyer verbally told me I would NOT be held accountable for anything other than what I owed in the rent I didn’t pay yet only for that to be a LIE. I was gaslighted literally. I even have him on record which I wish I could upload here but I’ll add to my social media instead because I do not want anyone of color to go through this because another issue was other tenants & workers told me other race were in the same boat but they gave them more time to catch up. Even after I explained everything, still paid something over nothing they literally treated me HORRIBLE. The paperwork I signed at mediation stated in small print that I was responsible for the rent up until the lease was up. So they sent me a bill of over 30k after also charging me a clean up fee after I paid for the place to get cleaned when for all of that I wouldn’t have left at all if I still would owe rent until the lease was up. Me agreeing to leave was thinking I was doing what was best to not give them issues or make any for myself with a newborn but whole time it was 100% for them to not have to try to evict me knowing by the time they could my lease would be up. I was informed people were living there who hadn’t paid rent for almost a year but of course they’re not my race so they get a pass. I knew what I owed them and literally didn’t have a issue with paying it the moment I could I make enough that within 3-4 months if that I would have Been caught up. And this is while still paying towards what I owed I never tried to not pay what I owed. I still was giving them money though so please don’t think I was living rent free! I wouldn’t have moved if I knew I would owe what I already owed plus the rest of the lease. I would have stayed if I was going to owe the same amount! They knew this though that’s why manager Will and that lawyer was so pleased when I agreed to leave. I still plan to pay what I owed but not the rest of no lease because he didn’t mention that. They took advantage of me being emotional keep in mind I JUST HAD A BABY! I’m still in postpartum as well!!!! They knew this. They did not give two sh*ts. They have huge water bugs which I never really complained about bc the location is downtown that’s almost expected. Beautiful place. Super convenient. Very expensive but almost worth it unless you want them to care about you then you should definitely find somewhere else. Not to mention they shut off the electric for hours and with a new born it was not easy!!! I understood this was a business I just really thought for someone living there for 6 years never giving any issues EVER, paid rent as I was suppose to every month, would be treated much differently when life got a little hard for me. Just don’t fall short while living here. I’ll be back to update with social media tag so you can...

Cons far out weigh Pros. The management of The Sterling would mess up a two car parade. Any positive rating on this building must have been orchestrated by the staff. Pros- Pool (however you are only allowed to bring 1 guest up there) and location. Cons- 1) Attitude of the management-They are terrible at communicating everything, both in content and timing. It is understandable that things break and need to be fixed. However, what makes this building different is that things break, and they will choose the cheapest option possible to fix it, which in turn breaks again and again. Then the management will have a response towards you that you just need to deal with it. 2) Constant Construction Noise-. There is constant hammering and drilling all day, 6 days a week (and yes Saturdays) sometimes from 8am-6pm from floors being renovated. They are doing two floors every 6 months. Also, there is a Comcast building being built on one side of the building. It will not be completed until 2017, and is a massive construction operation. There is no temporary rent compensation for this. 3) Water and Electric Out- About three times a month the water and electricity is shut off for an entire day for construction which is done in the building for next few years! A note is slipped under your door 1-2 days before hand telling you it will be done, and that you will not be compensated because it is in the 100 page lease that you signed. 4) Cockroaches- The building is filled with cockroaches, I kept finding them in my apt. Exterminator came up. He told me there must be billions, and yes billions, of cockroaches living in the ceiling between the 4th and 5th floor. And that the management isn't taking the steps to rid the building of them because its too expensive. 5) Group Utility Pricing- The only individually metered utility is electric, therefore the gas, water, heating, insect etc monthly utility bills are divided by total residents in the building. So if you don't use a lot of one utility expect to still pay $70 a month for water because you need to pay for everyone else. Not to mention all the common areas, hallways, lobby etc. And the $10.00 a month maintenance for all utilities, still don't know what that is. Just pile it all on. 6) Elevators-The elevators break extremely frequently, all four passenger elevators have not worked at the same time in over 2 years. And when you do get an elevator is usually filled with construction workers. 7) Renovated Apartments.- The renovated apartments which they are pushing are made up with the cheapest appliances and material possible. Literally, a former leasing agent told me they bought "defective" appliances from a GE warehouse because they were cheaper. That means all of the appliances in the new apartments were formerly owned then returned to manufacturer because they broke, then that crap was bought AIMCO for a cheap price! Literally, the perfect example of their cheapness. It does look nice from about 10 feet away. 8) Price- Even if you move in and are satisfied with your rent payment. It is not uncommon for them to up the rent payment the next term substantially without any changes to your apartment. 9) Fire alarms are faulty and they are too cheap to replace the system, false alarms go off once a week. So much that if there were ever a real fire no one would believe it. I could go on and on with more examples, but the management will deliver the cheapest and short-sided apartment living possible while charging "luxury" apartment pricing. They make solid attempts to seem pro-active and professional like responding to peoples complaints on here, and saying someone will reach out. But trust me they are anything but pro-active and professionals. I have always questioned reviews because you see some positive/negative and get confused. But all the other negative comments on here are spot on. I think the management must pay tenants $50 off rent to write reviews or does...

BEWARE OF FAKE 5 STAR REVIEWS RECENTLY POSTED

Awful management, and thankful for it.

We intended to renew our lease, but was offered rates FAR above where our unit was listing for new residents, which made no sense. When I inquired with management, they stated it was because how the prior lease was structured and they could not override it. I asked if I should simply submit a new lease application for the unit. Unfortunately for me, I asked this early on a Friday afternoon and management merely refused to respond until the following Tuesday. By that point, our apartment had been leased and no longer available to renew. This was a blessing, as our new apartment managed by Pearl Properties is so much nicer and the management actually cares about tenants.

Issues faced while living in the Sterling:

1.Lack of transparency/honesty with management. I rarely receive responses. Antiquated heating/cooling makes life here miserable during parts of the year 3.Deceitful cost marketing/transparency in fees. The $40 annual Luxor Fee was not disclosed when touring/prior to moving in. The $5/month "Energy Conservation Fee" is honestly a load of crap. Nothing about this building is energy efficient.The $5.25/month Service fee is ridiculous and provides no benefit to the resident. In all, there are $163 of annual fees that can easily be integrated with the rental cost to provide full transparency to the renter, but AIR chooses to instead pass these on after the fact. Nothing short of deceit. 4.The gym is (was) incredibly outdated; it may be one of the worst gyms I have seen in a Philadelphia luxury apartment complex. The treadmills have original iPod connection ports, which have not been used in nearly 10 years. Instead of putting money into the gym, we ended up with a pizza oven. Talk about poor capital allocation. The printer had been removed from the tech lounge. This was a selling point when we moved in, and it was removed with no explanation. Corey noted in an email to the community that management was seeking a solution. When I followed up directly, Corey noted that there would be no replacement after all. This is called lying. We were also told the front desk would no longer handle print jobs as it detracts from their duties. More often than not, they are on their personal phones. Honestly, I don't care about that in particular. I do however have a problem with being told they are "too busy" to deal with our one-off print requests and that is clearly not the reality. The fire alarms go off too frequently and staff have not been able to quickly address them. Outsiders (non-residents) have been able to make their way into the building on multiple occasions. I saw a homeless man tailgate into the building and rush into an elevator with a mother and her baby. Lack of care/maintenance with the roof/pool. Umbrellas break constantly as staff do not take them down prior to storms Pool usually lacks chlorine and is likely a hazard most of the time. Grills did not have a timer anymore; gas can be left on and continue to leak into the area creating a significant risk Cockroaches A friend of ours toured the building after we recommended it. They asked Cindy about the concept of socialized utilities and Cindy responded "well, this may not be the place for you then". Needless to say, that was the last time we recommended someone to live here. We were told not to leave any "large items" behind in our moveout as we would incur a fee. As instructed, we did not. However, management did not disclose that even small items would incur a $100 deduction from the security deposit. Another example of poor transparency. When our final bill came, I pointed out to the manager at the time that we had been double billed for utilities. He could not follow the simple math I laid out, which was frustrating.

Sure, the roof was cool and the $/sqft may be more favorable than other places in the city, but there are better...