Olive Queen Creek — Local services in Queen Creek

We lived here for a year, and I'll try to make this fairly straightforward and break down the review into different aspects of living here. We rented a 2 bedroom unit.

Moving in: 3/5 stars The move-in process was okay. Contacting Avilla, signing the lease, and getting a move in date was fine. The units looked great and were only about year old when we moved in. We were told that they would work with us to have our PODs delivered to a location near our apartment, but on the day of, we couldn't contact anyone from the office, and we ended up having the PODs put on the other side of the complex. Not a huge problem, but a annoying since they gave us the impression that we would have no problems getting the PODs near our unit.

Living there: 1/5 stars

Let's start with the pros: The units are really nice. New with nice appliances. Layout of the units are nice. Having a small backyard was good for washing the dog, but comes with its own set of problems (more on that later). The pool and hot tub are nice.

Cons: Dogs: I am a dog owner, and walk my dog every day. While there dog bags near each of the grass fields, very few people use them, resulting in small patches of grass with LOTS of dog poop everywhere. You can't walk there without stepping on dog poop, and the office ignored our calls. Another problem is that we ran into unleashed dogs multiple times, and again, the office can't/won't do anything. My dog does not do well with other dogs while on leash, so it's a bit nerve wracking for dogs to just come and run up to us while we're walking around.

Trash: We saw trash bags thrown at the grass areas (just left there) several times. Each time, we alerted management, and they just said thank you for letting them know, and did nothing and left the trash there several days. I don't know if management picked it up eventually, or if the trash valet did. Also, many tenants just leave trash bags in front of their units for trash valet every night, making the whole complex look a bit "trashy".

Backyard: Having a backyard is nice, but we were initially told that the apartment would take care of backyard maintenance. They did NOT contact us at all about maintaining the backyard until they told us we needed to pay $45 to have the backyard weeded, or pay $8 per weed at move out.

Contact/online support: The online portal to pay was okay. However, there was a major issue where the online automatic payments were not going through, and we were only notified via a late payment notice. I was only told that the automatic payments were broken, and that I had to pay via other means after I went to the front office to ask why my payment hadn't gone through. Also, the front office never calls or emails; they only put paper notices in doors.

Other points: They only give one gate clicker, which means if you have more than one car, one of you will always need to stop and punch in the numbers. Parking isn't great. Our unit came with one parking spot, so there was always a bit of a fight for a second, free spot near the unit.

Move out: 0/5 What a nightmare. We were told we could only do the walkthrough during a 2 hour window (1-3pm) because the maintenance guy had to be there, otherwise we would forfeit the walkthrough. We got to the walkthrough, and the maintenance person wasn't even there. The walkthrough went smoothly, and we were told that we would need to pay the $45 weeding fee, and the final water bill. Two weeks later, we got a check for $20 out of our $250 deposit. I had to call them TWICE to get a move-out statement sent to me, and on it there was a $176 "rubs" fee that we were not told about. Fine. Here's the final kicker: even though we gave them our new address, they mailed the check TO THE APARTMENT, FROM WHICH WE MOVED OUT.

Long story short, the apartments themselves are really nice, but actually living there and the move out process...

*edit for their response. I am aware of the 3 day grace period, no miscommunications about that. However, when the apartment hasn't generated the bill correctly by the 1st, the grace period should be extended. It was not my fault that you were having issues with utilities generating on time. Plus there was no communication from management when it was being finally generated(just late letter on your door), so it was just a matter of checking the online portal daily, which unfortunately I do not have the time to do. I paid the late fee, but I don't appreciate your comment implying I occurred a late fee, because of miscommunication on my part, and the bill being paid outside the 3 day grace. It would have been paid within those 3 days if it had generated on time, on the 1st of the month, when rent is due, as stated in the lease.

My advice, ask people when they sign up how you would like to communicate with them. Maybe get a text message system to send alerts. When you have issues with your billing system, remove late fees or extend the grace period a few days.

No gym, or activity center. Rent increases, along with garage, and pet fees. They have had many billing issues with utilities. Multiple times utilities were not calculated into the monthly bill by the 1st, so if you paid on the first you would get a letter saying you had more to pay, so you'd have to either waste another check, or acquire fees to use their online payment system. I tried waiting til the 4th for the utilities to generate to avoid these extra inconveniences, and they charged me a late fee even tho their bill generated late. After that I went and tried to add everything together myself, and pay extra then what they calculated on the 1st, and I got a letter on my door saying I had fees that needed to be paid by the 20th or else I would get charged even more. I was not in town. I payed my rent went out of town, and their way of communicating is letters on the door. No emails or calls about late payments, so cross your fingers the wind isn't bad, or you aren't out of town when they decide to notify you of issues.

IT IS SMALL. 600 SF for a 1 bedroom, backyards are smaller than some apartment patios, you have 1 drawer in the entire kitchen, no dining room(the large kitchen island is their "dinning room"), no pantry, the refrigerator opens into the wall so you can't open it fully, you get charged $25/mo for valet trash, but on multiple occasions my trash was not picked up(if you don't follow the trash guidelines you can be fined $25, but what happens if they don't get your trash), VERY limited guest parking- have had to park across the complex at some points(they also didn't install ANY handicap spaces, so normal spots are constantly being converted to handicap parking), no sidewalks to walk around the entire complex(kids will have to walk in the street to get to the bus stops), only a small area to walk your dog (if you don't want to walk in the street), the back gates constantly stay open all day/night MULTIPLE times throughout the year, the pool in the back gets vandalized, the roads in general are narrow, and they have 90 degree blind turns back to back through out the complex. MAKE SURE YOU DO A WALKTHROUGH WITH THE STAFF WHEN MOVING OUT. INSIST ON IT. If you don't like having stairs, and no one living above you, this is the place for you! They also are...

I lived here for a year and let me start off by saying the move in was easy but they will rip you when you move out.

First off, I paid my deposit on move in PLUS a pet deposit and paid monthly pet rent to keep my dog at the complex. When I moved out I hired a cleaning crew to clean the WHOLE apartment appliances and all. I also didn't hang anything on the wall to avoid having to fix it or have my deposit held at the end. The day I moved out I handed my keys to Erick and asked if we were going to do that walk through right then with him, he stated "we don't do walk a walk through, the maintenance guys will do the walk through and we send a statement" I should have known better but I said ok and left.

Its now been month and I have not received a walk out statement or a check. I called the complex and Erick answered. I asked him where my walk out statement and check was. He looked up my account and read back my address which was off by one number ( I clarified the address a month ago to make sure they had the right one and they did) so Erick was lying off the bat. Then he stated we will cut you a new check and have it sent out you will receive it in a few weeks.

Its now been a few weeks and still haven't received anything. I called again and Ashley answered the phone. She began to tell me that they charged my for cleaning and re-painting the WHOLE apartment and I actually owe them $100 bucks. The apartment did not need to be repainted by any means and was spotless when I left. She asked me to send her a receipt of the cleaning crew I hired and the only time they charge for a full paint is if more than 5 walls need to be painted. There were not more than 5 full walls that needed to be painted at all, so they lied to keep the deposit on the walk out. She said she would have a manager call me.

Erick never told me any of this and was avoiding conflict. He lied the entire time. This place is a joke and is way over priced and they will do whatever they can to keep the deposit even if you didn't pay much. They state your water is included in your rent and then change it to a separate bill half way through, they even raised the prices on us to. Don't waste your time with this company, your better off renting a house for the same price in the area. They will give you the run around and say everything they can to get you to move in. I will say thank you Ashley for being honest and telling me what was truly on...