Having just moved from an actual luxury apartment in Edgewater with The Avalon, whom I have zero…read moreissue with, please know that I am about to make an apples-to-apples comparison so you know I'm not just unfairly making these claims and complaints based on nothing.
There's a lot to get into, so I won't waste any time, but be forewarned that The Edge at Freehold was by far the worst residence I've lived in during my 41 years of renting apartments, and there isn't even a close second.
List of Personal Grievances:
Again, I've lived in at least 15 different places that asked for a security deposit. Not only is this the first time I haven't received my security deposit in full, but the fact that I was told verbatim by Dwight, their maintenance manager, that there is no way even possible to recoup 100% of that deposit is outrageous.
I went back and reviewed my lease, and nowhere does it say that you will automatically be charged for the carpet and paint no matter what.
There is absolutely, positively no excuse to not even give a tenant the option to steam clean and/or paint the apartment, while you guys obviously prefer to charge us for these items at a much, much, much higher cost than it would be if we could do it ourselves. I mean, how hard would it be to give me a swatch so I could shop for the right hue of paint?
One wall in my bedroom costs $450? They, of course, pay Dwight a salary, not per hour and/or per job, and it would've costed me $50 tops to do it myself, which I offered to do but was rebuffed.
Every other residence I've lived in, it's been expected that, when a new tenant comes in, there will be wear and tear that you guys are responsible for. They didn't nickel and dime for everything imaginable.
After speaking with their customer care department, I was told flat out that they need to revise their verbiage in the lease to make this more clear and she also said that she would need to talk to Dwight to make sure that he's communicating properly so there are proper expectations.
So right off the bat, we have not one but two admissions of guilt: Improperly set expectations leaving way too much room for subjectivity when it comes to how much of your security deposit you'll receive back AND that the head of their maintenance department didn't communicate properly.
Also, after I moved out, I went back there the very next day to clean up. I was there for 3 hours on my hands and knees, scrubbing, cleaning, vacuuming, mopping, and dusting the place top to bottom.
There is NO way I should've been hit with a $150 charge for cleaning. Because if, after all that cleaning, I still got banged with that cleaning charge, then that means there was no way that, no matter how hard I tried, I could've avoided it, so I wasted 3 hours of my Saturday afternoon because The Edge wasn't up front that they charge $150 to clean the apartment no matter how clean you leave it!
Also, if I knew that there was going to be ongoing construction literally the entire time I was living there, I wouldn't have moved in. Every day, I woke up to hammering, construction vehicles in the way as I came and went about my day, as well as a perpetually dirty car that required me paying $32/mo. for unlimited car washes.
So, if anything, they should owe me almost $400 for a year's worth of recurring billings for car washes, due to all the piles of dirt blowing debris onto my black car.
Also, dating back 6 months, my neighbor had complained of a gas smell in her apartment.
Their maintenance crew came by and told me it was resolved, yet it wasn't. How do I know? Because the neighbor kept complaining about it, and the problem wasn't identified until the week I moved out, even though they had been there twice before to check out the issue and said it was addressed.
They're lucky I'm not the letigious type, but I'd be remiss if I failed to warn a prospective resident that their staff is so incompetent that I had a gas leak in my apartment for half a year that they physically visited to check for several times and couldn't identify it for the longest time.
Lest you think this is no big deal, what if I had lit a candle when the power went out with that gas billowing into my apartment?
Unfortunately, Yelp doesn't leave enough room to list my remaining gripes, but just know that if you're at all in compliance with the CDC guidelines, they are NEVER enforced at The Edge at Freehold. NEVER. No one there follows the rules about mask wearing indoors, and The Edge just pretends they don't see it.
So, hopefully, this serves as fair warning for those of you considering moving into The Edge at Freehold. Again, I've lived in dozens of apartments, including luxury rentals, and I've never, ever felt compelled to leave a scathing online review before.
But when someone does right by me, I leave a positive review. When they do the opposite, well, you reap what you sow in life.
Hope this helps, and best of luck to you!