The Fillmore Center — Local services in San Francisco

After years of insane rent hikes (the last one was $600/month, "negotiated" down to a $500/month, i.e. $6000/year hike) and not wanting to deal with the devilish leasing manager Carlos anymore I've moved. Glad to be rid of the joint!

I lived in the Fillmore Center for six years. It's an ok place to live, but there are some strong downsides to renting here.

The downsides: The management company does the bare minimum to maintain the place. The leasing manager, Carlos, is horrible to deal with. He claims to have no say as to what you're paying and just tells you to move out if you don't like the prices (I eventually did). They should just replace him with a form letter for all the use he is. One of the worst parts of the Fillmore Center. The apartments are old (around 25 years old now) but the outside, leasing office, and show apartments are kept to look up-to-date. Check out your apartment before signing the lease or you might end up with a 90s special! Rent goes up every year. Expect a 10-20% increase (i.e. thousands of dollars per year); that is expect to pay an additional month of rent or more every year you live here without anything being improved in your apartment. "We don't do upgrades to occupied units". Over six years my rent went up by over 50%. If I stayed another year it would have been closer to 70%. Everything in the apartment is of the lowest possible quality: the outside is kept looking nice, but inside things remain old/deteriorating. Service varies from great to bad. One time your issue is dealt with right away with a smile, the next it takes a week to get something sorted out, you can't find anyone who knows about what's going on, and everyone you deal with wants nothing to do with you. These apartments are expensive for what you get.

I kept renewing my lease because the apartment works well for me in a few ways, i.e. "the upsides": The walls between units are mostly cement so you don't need to worry about neighbor noise (yours or theres) too much. One of my bedroom walls was not cement, bizarrely, though. It's near entertainment: there are music venues and a movie theatre nearby. There's a nearby grocery store.

The apartments are sort of marketed as if they're "higher end", but they're not any better than your average multi-decade old apartment complex. Even the "completely renovated" apartment I saw was just new counter tops on decades old, beat up cabinets.

Examples of issues I've had: When I moved in there was a ton of stuff wrong with the place as it hadn't been updated in many years. I had to get various things replaced and they just plain wouldn't fix others. I found garbage in my sink from the previous tenants. The paint on the walls was already cracking the day I moved in. There were cuts and paint splotches in the carpet. The closet doors don't fit the space in the wall so they are bent & kinked. The paint is of such low quality that a wet cloth can wash it off the walls. I had fixtures rusted when I moved in and was promised a replacement that I never got. There was paint splatter on the mirror I had to remove myself. I needed to clean layers of dust out of places. The list goes on but you...

STAY AWAY!!!!!!!!!!! Where to begin--- been here for 7 months... in those months....i was wrongfully assigned to a neighbors mailbox, and simultaneously told a different wrong new address upon moving in, this caused me not to receive mail and bills for over 2 months, as well as exposed my personal mail and information to a random neighbor who was already assigned this mailbox, and to make it worse, every time i reached out to resident services about my concern over the lack of mail i was receiving, i was basically told i was crazy and that everything was fine even though me and another neighbor were clearly sharing a mailbox. This caused me to miss several parking violations which became delinquent and doubled in fines!! costing me over $500 in late fees!!! i have reached out regarding that several times, months later still no response from the managers, i paid for parking and was told that my parking spot would be available and ready the day i moved in, i did not get a spot assigned to me for over a month even though i was paying for parking and was promised it would be available, another $300 down the drain with no care from the property management or resident services, upon moving in i submitted my inspection paperwork stating the apartment was not deep cleaned to a satisfactory level, and that my microwave was broken, stains on the carpet---welp, that also took me numerous calls and in person visits, for it to finally be addressed a month later only after i again brought up ALL of these concerns. Someone attempted to be break into apartment (while i was asleep), my neighbors unit was broken into, and my car was broken into, even though i pay $300/month for secured parking, my neighbor's dog above me barks nonstop and has been nearly every night all night (they work graveyard i take it), I've complained and reported it several times, security has tried to knock, but again the resident must work graveyard, when i reached out again to resident services-- i was told i should file a police report.... for a dog... barking. come on man. If you're too lazy to hold your residents accountable yourself just say so, but don't gas light a tenant by telling them they should have filed a police report over a dog barking, when it clearly states in the lease what the excessive noise in the resident policy is, therefore its you're duty to enforce, not mine. Aside from all that, the constant issues surrounding the water that requires it to be shut off several days each month, and also the fire alarm inspections, installs and testing that i was told happens once a year, but has actually happened 3 times since April... id say my overall living experience here has been... Meh... to...

Let me start by acknowledging the only people who seem to care about this place: the maintenance, engineering, and cleaning staff. They actually take pride in their work and treat residents with respect. The management, however, is a complete disaster. I’ve never dealt with a more incompetent, indifferent, and borderline negligent group of people in my life.

If you enjoy sending countless emails and following up repeatedly about unjust fees or unresolved issues, this is the place for you! No matter how many times I contacted management, it would take 5 or 6 follow-ups to get any response at all. By the time they did reply, they’d shrug off the problem, saying, “It’s been too long now, nothing we can do.” It’s an absurd and infuriating tactic, designed to wear you down until you just give up. They bank on residents being too exhausted to fight back.

Now, if you’re thinking, “Why don’t you just go in person?” trust me, I tried that too. But management has a handy little four-step process for dealing with complaints in person: Read from script and say, “We’ll look into it.” Don’t look into it. When resident comes back to follow up, roll your eyes and act like they’re the problem. Repeat this cycle 5 or 6 times and drive them insane.

Look, guy I don’t wanna be here either for the 20th time! This little game of theirs repeats over and over, driving you to the point where you’d rather pay their ridiculous fees than keep banging your head against the wall. Congratulations, Greystar, you’ve figured out how to nickel-and-dime your residents by being the worst at your job!

Safety? Forget it. Random teenagers (who don’t even live in the complex) run through the halls at all hours, banging on doors, vandalizing the place, and setting off fire alarms at 4 AM. Packages get stolen regularly, and cars in the garage have had their tires stolen. What does management do? Absolutely nothing. They don’t care. This place is one incident away from a complete catastrophe, and management will still be sitting in their office doing nothing.

Their one-star reviews are no accident, and it’s laughable how they pretend to care only when called out publicly. But let me assure you, those promises to “do better” are just more empty words. They have no intention of fixing anything.

Save yourself the headache, frustration, and financial drain - do not live here. There are far better options, like Bozzuto or AVA buildings, where you’ll at least be treated like a human being. The Fillmore Center is nothing more than a money pit run by a management team that couldn’t care less about you or your well-being....