Tenant Reviews for 4141 N Braeswood Blvd

i have seen some poorly maintained apt. complexes in the houston area but this one has got to be one of the worst. the management staff is not only inept but non compliant with city codes as well, the laundry room is one of the best eye sores next to the swimming pool which is always green. i feel as if i'm back in Mexico living in the barrio when something breaks outside they don't repair it to match as it was they come up with south of the border used material fix and just tell everyone this is the way it is. it's really sad that this complex has sunken to the state it has, all of this has come to be over the last 2 years since the new owner took over

i lived here about 9 months. its not a bad place. we had one issue. there was a plumming problem and all the stuff from mine and my neighbor's toliets went all over our floors in the bathroom and living room. all the apartments did was clean the carpet and spray. it was nasty. so we moved.

Reviews posted previously are correct.<br><br>- Be prepared for roaches and other insects. They seem to be pretty prevalent and travel from other units. <br><br>- The laundry room was burglarized, with machines broken to steal the quarters.<br><br>- Maintenance staff does the minimum to keep things in order, expect little irritating things wrong with your unit and a "quick fix" approach. Overall they are friendly and try to do a good job.<br><br>- Heating and cooling require constant use of the air handler fan which is noisy. No fan = no heat or cool.<br><br>- Utility bills are high.<br><br>- Units are big. Mine is 2nd floor which is quieter.

I've lived in the Rutledge for over two years and the maintenance and management is absolutely wonderful. The property is small and all my neighbors are very friendly. I feel very safe and secure at this property. I love my spacious apartment.

The management here is horrible. They are rude and unhelpful. Corporate is the same way. My utilities have been $300 for the past three months for a 2 bedroom. My friend has a large house that is 4 times the size of my apartment and he pays less for utilities that I do. The air never works. Now the management is renting to people at a much lower price than I am paying and I have been a tenant for 3 years. My friend called for the prices and had management fax over the quotes. They were much less. When I confronted management about it she said I was lying. I showed her the fax and she said it was a mistake. I had another friend call and she was told the same lower price. Liars! Do not move here! Maintenance is really nice though. Too bad management sucks! The quality of the residents has declined also. The complex used to be filled with professionals and nice residents. Now there are 10 people living in one apartment and they let their many kids run all over the driveway. Another tenant was beating his wife in the parking lot. A lot of domestic abuse incidents have occurred in several different apartments. Two guys that just moved in smoke marijuana on their patio all of the time. The management just wants to fill the apartments up and get the rent. They do not care about who moves into the complex. The management double bills the residents for electric and can never keep track of rent and utility payments. The manager even tried to evict over half of the complex because she forgot to post the rent payments. The night drop gets broken into all of the time and management has done nothing about it. There is no security. The parking lot, walkway, and complex lights rarely work at night. Cars are broken into all of the time. Management put a fake camera in the laundry room to scare people, but it is so obvious that it is fake. The locks for the laundry room have been broken for several months. I could go on and on, but there is not enough room or time for all of the problems with this complex. BEWARE!!! DO NOT MOVE HERE!

I have been living here for 4 years now and the one person who had anything postive to say about the Rutledge said that there was a money-back guarantee on maintenance. I do not know where the hell he/she got that. This is the worst place I have lived in. It is hot all of the time--My utilities for july came to $303.00. I am moving out at the end of october and only just got my august bill. This scares me because in order to move out, I will have to cough up the utilities for august, september and october. At the rate we are charged here I will have to cough up about $800 to get out of this hellhole. THe management is AWFUL. I don't understand the way they do business around here. I just found out that one of my neighbors is paying $620 to live in a two bedroom and I am paying $805 (on a lease!) for the exact same layout and size! THey are so desperate for tenants that they have dropped the rents so low but they jack you on the utilities. This place will be a slum dwelling at the rate that its going. Plus they charge a $400 pet deposit and a $10 a month pet rent!

Like the person who wrote the review titled "lots of problems here" I agree with everything the person said. I live in a two bedroom and my utilities in July were $300.00. It has really gone downhill here. Last summer there were 11 vacancies (only 68 units here) because so many people were mad about the way the utilities were handled. Managment locked us out of the club house and swimming pool area when we tried to have a meeting to discuss the problems. Don't let the large apartments and view of the bayou fool you. You will pay dearly if you move in here. I had planned to stay here for 5 years until I got my finances in order but its impossible to do that when you are shelling out a fortune in utilities. I have complained numerous times about my AC not cooling properly and I am always told, "well, its because you live on the second floor" I lived on the 2nd floor in other complexes and have never had a problem. The management is condecending. The regional management always sends out these questionnaires they want us to fill out and if you write anything negative they don't do anything about it.

after 3 months of living here, i get booted out of my parking spot only for them to say that i was never assigned one (even though i filled out a parking assignment form). last 2 months, we've been charged $200 /mon. for just electricity, and their only response is, "thats about normal". come to think of it, all my friends with houses pay $100-150/mon max for elec.

I was surprised to see these negative comments about The Rutledge. I still live here. Sure, I've had problems, but have always had them rectified promptly and feel like the office and maintenance people care about me and the people who live here. It's a small, quiet complex and I love my apartment... It's HUGE and WOW, what a view! I'm close to work and shopping, and even have a money-back maintenance guarantee. Couldn't ask for more. <br> <br>Happily Satisfied at The Rutledge

I am going to be moving out of The Rutledge when my current lease runs out, after living here for three years. The management, SMI, is horrible. They are completely unwilling to do anything to help the tenants or improve the complex. Our utility bills are sky-high, and SMI has done nothing about it. The utilities are divided up between all of the apartments based on square footage and how many people live in the apartment. I live alone in one of just 5 one-bedrooms, so my bills should be the lowest. Yet for almost half of last year, my bills were over $200. That´s for electricity, water, gas, and sewer. The tenants have tried to get SMI to demand an audit of HL&P, but they won´t do anything. And when the tenants tried to band together to demand a change, the complex locked us out of the room we were going to meet in (the first time it´s ever been locked) and refused to renew the lease of the tenant who got us all together. The rent is affordable, but once you add up all of the utilities, plus phone and cable (the complex doesn´t pay for even basic cable, so my cable with just HBO runs almost $80 a month), it´s expensive. Plus, you don´t get to control the air or heat -- the outside temp does. For instance, if it´s 64 degrees outside, you can´t get A/C. But our complex is so well insulated that if it´s 64 outside, it could easily be over 72 inside, which is too warm for me. There are few amenities and no security, and last Friday night my neighbor had her car stolen out of the parking lot. Plus, my next-door neighbors are two guys who apparently like to re-enact Wrestlemania all of the time, and since the walls between our places are so thin, I can hear everything. Including their alarms in the morning! Plus, every time you take a shower the water constantly flunctuates between ice cold and boiling hot -- there is no happy medium. I have to say that I´ve never seen a roach in my apartment, though, unlike one of the other reviewers. The maintenance crew guys are great, and the apartments are large, but that doesn´t make up for all of the other problems.