500 Folsom Apartments — Local services in San Francisco

I’ve been living here for more than a year and thought I’d share my experience. These are the things I had to learn the hard way so you don’t have to. TL;DR: I don’t recommend renting here at all.

NOISE: The walls are super thin, you could hear very clearly when your neighbors playing music or just talking loud. Also, the floor is not solid hard wood, it’s just laminate wood flooring and you could hear when people upstairs walk or drop something on the floor. However, all of these noises I could live with. There’s been another issue that makes the apartment unlivable. Started around March, there’s been a very loud metal banging noise happening somewhere in the ceiling randomly a few times a day. At first I thought it came from the neighbors upstairs. I tried reaching out to management, the email went unanswered. Over the past three months, the noise has happened so frequently, some days it happens almost every hour thorough out the day. I reached out to maintenance team and they took a look for a few minutes, but the noise didn’t happen so they closed the ticket. I tried to explain it happens randomly, and I can't just make the noise on demand. Anyway, spent a lot of times recording the noise and turns out it’s some kind of water hammer issue coming from the pipes system buried in the wall/ceiling. The noise could be heard on multiple floors. And this is just not my unit. It affects the unit next to me (confirmed by people touring that unit) and probably a lot of other units around my floor too. The thing is, all of units on my floor have moved out over the past few months. The banging noise used to happen during the day, but since two weeks ago it’s occurred during the night at 2am, 4am, 6am. I tried wearing earplugs to sleep but the noise is super high pitch, earplugs are nothing. I had to stay out of the apartment waiting for them to identify and fix the issue, and I just came back today after 15 days and the issue still hasn’t been fixed. Sent multiple followed up emails but no response.

SECURITY: Bad. The main lobby door was used to be unlocked all the time, anyone could come in. Early October, there was in intruder armed with a machete running around inside the building and trying to break into an apartment. Police arrrived on scene and detained the suspect. Look up on Citizien app, there should be videos. Better yet, last month I brought some packages from the package room to my apartment, left them at the front door...

Not worth the price. There are better managed buildings in the area with better rates. The rent has dropped significantly since I signed my lease and I cannot wait to move. The building is nice, however, its not a luxury, don't be fooled by the lobby. The apartments are very basic nothing spectacular and the staff does not provide "luxury" service that matches the cost of rent. Other buildings with comparable rates offer a true concierge service, package delivery (to your unit), valet, etc. None of that is offered here.

Most of the amenities are still closed so there really is no incentive to living here over someplace nearby like the Avery, Tehama, Jasper, or Harrison. Unless of course, getting free food from a random food truck outside the building on a random weekend from the management team is your thing.

The best thing about this building is that it was new. The management team does not handle resident complaints or requests well. It's not even worth contacting them for help, totally clueless. They don't really do anything but send threatening emails about checking security cameras in the building to residents and other nonsense. They have never been able to get the package system together and are going to charge residents for use of this broken system in 2021. You have to go to the smelly basement to some back alley room to pick up your package. I would never go down there at night and hate having to go down there period. My packages have sat for days without me receiving any notification they should be picked.This is due to their poorly implemented system and using HelloPackage as their service of choice, which again, they will be charging residents for.

I'm not really looking for a well-crafted reply from anyone at 500 Folsom. Im simply here to share my perspective with potential future renters for their consideration because people do not have time or money to waste these...

I left a 5 star review when I moved in a year ago. Now that I have moved out, I feel the opposite. While the view had great potential on the 28th floor, the windows did not get cleaned for the entire year I was there. Someone above me must have poured soda out the window and at some point hair got stuck to it. It was pretty nasty(see photo). They told me window washers would soon clean but they never did.

Front door staff was nice enough. But they kept getting rid of them and hiring new ones. After a while they did not hire enough and there would be no one at the desk for deliveries.

But the worst is that after me being there a year and not hanging anything on the walls or complaining in any way (other than simply letting them know my window was dirty), they are extorting me on my final bill.

The email communication simply tells me when I needed to be out. It also says that if I'm not out on that day that I'll be automatically signed up for another year. This was made clear in the email. So at my convenience, I logged into the system and noticed there was a way to specify that I'd be leaving. So I clicked the agreement.

Because I took that action 20 days before I moved out, they charged me $1800 extra citing small print in the lease agreement that I needed to give 30 days notice. It was not in a single email communication or anything other than the original lease. No reminders whatsoever. They also attempted to charge me $250 for paint and supplies. They removed that after I threatened them with the pictures I took when I moved out.

For the price I paid, this building was unprofessional and is squeezing me for every penny they can get. I'd stay away...