The Social — Local services in Temple Terrace

I’ve lived at the social for about two years, overall it was an okay first place to live but this leasing term was the absolute worst.

I moved in right at the beginning of the new company CLS living took over, the first year I lived at The Social wasn’t too bad. I had great roommates, so the roommate matching was great initially, if you’re moving out on your own with no friends to live with be extra specific with your preferences! They help you more than you think! The second round was rough but not a bad turn out!

The place itself is near USF but if you are new to the area, keep in mind that you need to leave 20-30 minutes before classes begin. The traffic to get on campus will hurt you more than anything.

The apartment itself (I lived in a 4x4 it was supposed to be a renovated but that’s a lie) if you really want a renovated apartment you might not get one. They have a habit of doing this to many residents and you need to hold your documents air tight and sealed - if you’re expecting a fight you won’t win. This is a habit even with overages, something I’ll explain later. The space itself is nice and cozy! I lived on the third floor and probably had the better outcome. There were few issues with my apartment but always request a new carpet or deep clean for your room from the vents down the entire apartment is carpeted and pet dander carries!

The staff I tried to not come in contact with very often. I do have to say they’re forgiving with late rent, a lot of the time I was late because #firstgencollegekid so it was a little rough. As long as you speak to them beforehand they can be forgiving! Parking is horrible for visitor parking, there are three areas total with at most 45-50 spots max for parking and once it’s full you have to park next door. Don’t mess with visitor parking or tell your guests to come early whew.

Now the bad; if you are considered a light user of electricity make it lighter or don’t it doesn’t matter. Everyone I knew including myself got charged overages and we never used anything, even when I was the only person in the apartment for a whole three months my roommates and I still had overages and I was barely there. They won’t refund you and they’ll say that it’s in comparison to the previous leasing term - when we asked for a TECO bill we couldn’t get it from TECO we had to get it from the office. A lot of the reviews you’ll see are about overages and staff entering at short notice which is true. It’s a bit weird considering my new apartment doesn’t have so many people entering the apartments at all times. I had some damages from my first leasing term from another roommate which they did not hesitate to charge all of us which we all fought since it was well documented - if you know you didn’t do it fight like hell or they’ll try to stick you with the bill equally between roommates. I did run into an issue with the washer and dryer in unit, the washer made a noise for over 5 months until it broke and flooded not only my kitchen but all three apartments below me, on top of having a building on fire diagonal from my unit maybe a few weeks later. A fun time one could say! The response to the flood wasn’t ideal, the closest emergency maintenance person was a whole 45 minutes away - not smart planning on their part. Even the maintenance people have more empathy than the office and maintenance was honestly the best part of this whole complex. The office and whoever handles billing seem to just want to screw everyone over which isn’t ideal for a college kid. It costs a lot to move but this isn’t too bad for a first place! It’s decent enough to be appreciated for all the rough things that happen in apartment living!

Overall, despite the bad the good overwhelms it too. Great maintenance team! 9/10! The buildings can be a little dirty but give a really great home feeling. The noise level is minimal and it’s a great quiet spot, if street noise bothers you I’d request to be in the back. If you’re in the front it’s not too bad, it’s really just the sirens. Community activities are great...

The reviews here do not lie. I have lived here for the past year and a half and I have never suffered more in my life.

--- THE BAD ---

If you are even remotely sensitive to noise, DO NOT LIVE ON THE FIRST OR SECOND FLOOR. The floors and ceilings are made of the cheapest possible building material. I heard EVERYTHING upstairs and was about to be driven insane by the constant stomping, partying, and general inconsiderate noise from the scum of the earth living above me. I also have been bothered by the noise beside me and below me. This apartment literally caused me anxiety problems that continued even after moving out. Bottom of the barrel USF students here. Most are completely disrespectful of their own home, trashing the hallways and blaring subwoofers night and day driving through the complex. I have seen a raw chicken breast crawling with maggots right on the floor outside my doorstep. I have seen a full box of pizza thrown from the 3rd story sitting outside my building for a week. The “security" company hired by the complex is pretty much worthless. After dozens of calls across multiple nights, only about 2/10 parties above us were actually broken up and I was left sleepless until the sun rose more times than I want to remember. Parking is pretty bad. Not many spots to begin with and two of my friends have gotten towed - costing them $250 - and one was towed completely unfairly. I would say 3 days out of every week (mostly weekends), visitor spots were COMPLETELY full after 5pm. The gym is a joke here. It used to be decent when I moved in, but it was closed for about 6 months of my lease for superficial renovations and STILL more than half the machines are missing the weight pins (likely cost less than $4) leaving them unusable. You’d also be lucky to find a treadmill with a working touchscreen or distance tracker. The living space itself is pretty bad, but take a tour to know what you’re getting yourself into. The apartment they put me in was in pretty poor condition when I moved in - my main complaint being how dirty the carpets were - black feet all day, every day. The surrounding neighborhood is VERY UNSAFE. Please do your research to see there was a SHOOTING at the Smoking Bull hookah lounge in the plaza bordering this apartment complex earlier this year (2016).

--- THE GOOD (It does exist!) ---

The landscaping and outside of the buildings really are beautiful. The office staff was extremely nice most of the time (even if they weren’t helpful). I received all my packages safe and sound living here. Maintenance is okay. Had an issue with the dryer (dreadfully squeaky) that didn’t get fixed for a week due to a part needing to be ordered. Our AC also went out once in the afternoon too and it did get fixed the next day after call #2 was made so I can't complain too much here. The price is really unbeatable. For a little more than $400 you have every single one of your housing bills paid for (including HD cable and internet). Also good to note is that I was never charged an overage for electricity once. New management has taken many steps to improve the complex. Roommate matching was decent. My 3 semi-random roommates were surprisingly nice, apart from being inconsiderate in their own special ways. And I think the survey done to match us at least put us all close to the same cleanliness level. In the end, one of the guys ended up being really cool, but I'm seriously happy to be getting away from the other two at the end of this term.

-- OVERALL --

I DO NOT recommend living here at all. The pros here do not outweigh the cons and I am leaving this complex with severe anxiety from the stress I have endured here. If you cannot afford anything but this, then by all means I'm sure there are worse places to live in the area (I heard multiple times Campus Lodge on Livingston is actually worse) but if you have a little bit more $$, find some friends to live with and make a better...

Anyone that’s debating on moving here let me tell you, don’t do it. I’ve been here for exactly 6 months and it’s been absolutely awful, miserable and unbearable. My roommate and I are currently in search for a lawyer/attorney to legally unbind us from our lease and here’s to why. I’m first going to put the more important things to the top. Which I also have picture and videos of!

Which living here for 6 months there was been an awful pest issue. My roommate and I don’t open the patio door at all and we keep all windows sealed and closed to ensure that. With us living in Florida we know palmetto bugs are a thing and usually happens during the summer time but we don’t have that. As you read down to the bottom the carpet that we asked to get clean? Yeah it never got cleaned as we have Roaches and roach eggs implanted into our carpet that was oh so throughly cleaned. We called pest control and we were told to leave the unit for 4-5 hours. I work from home as well as do school online so that’s not possible for me. Pest control finally comes in at 1:57pm February 2nd, 2025. He moved the fridge (Barely), spoke to me as if I’m incompetent telling me to “go back to my room so he can “start doing treatment”. Sprayed behind the fridge twice and then left at 2:04pm as my neighbors also have a ring camera. If all I had to do was move a fridge and spray behind it then I could have saved the 60 dollar charge and done a better job myself. So now this makes me thing why do they request you to leave for so long?

My roommate and I moved in Tuesday August 20th, 2024. We both were barely at the apartment as we were trying to move from our previous residence which meant nothing was on and we weren’t there at all. After being there for “11” days we were charged an overage fee for not being at our apartment. Air wasn’t on, nothing was plugged in other than the fridge and microwave that was already there upon move in. As well us attempting to use our ac, it broke and didn’t blow cool air or air at all. We were also still getting charged for air that wasn’t working as well.

As we were moving in we were promised to be moving into a clean environment as well as a pet free zone/unit since I’m extremely allergic to dogs and cats. As soon as we walk into apartment reeked of urine and was filled with dog hair. We called and the response we got is “We’re sorry, the previous tenets before you fostered dogs around the apartment so that may be from that”. (No solution, no nothing). We ended up having to borrow a carpet cleaner and strip the carpet ourselves which did not help at all due to how filthy it was. After 3 months of constant contact and no resolution, we finally got the carpet “cleaned” November 12th, 2024 after they finished our whole unit in 30/45 minutes. (Not enough time to clean and throughly clean urine stained carpet) but it seems like half a$$ing is a common thing here. (I’ll get into more)

When moving into any unit you plan on renting you’ll have to do an inspection and send in anything that’s an issue and request maintenance. Our unit had many holes that were poorly patched, ripped couches and a washer that sounds like someone is beating down the door. We put in a request for washing machine and someone came and sprayed WD-40 inside and proceeded to tell us “if it still makes noise put in another request”

Our Dishwasher was broken but we weren’t told that so as we’re washing dishes we notice that it’s overflowing with water and seeping into the floors that are poorly glued down vinyl. We made multiple requests for this as well and this did not get any notice until December 17th, 2024

I’m currently scared for the wellbeing of both of us as we are staying with others due to how filthy the conditions are. We pay over 1000 in rent with overage fees on top of this rate to A. Not live in it and to B. Not have important living needs directed and solved. There was only one person that has been help and...