Laurelwood Oaks Apartments

No use calling maintenance....comes included: a moron manager

Let’s see, where can I start? My boyfriend and I moved into the apartments in the Summer of ’06. We looked at a bunch beforehand and decided these would do. Boy, were we wrong. First off, the apartments are in a very unsafe area of SW Bakersfield. They are located on White Lane, which is a main street off the 99. The strip of apartments on White Lane are know for getting broken into. Well, I wish we had known this ahead of time, because our apartment and the man’s across from us were broken into mid-day on a Thursday, on the second story. It happens. We were lucky the burglars were in a hurry and didn’t take much. Secondly, we were staying in a 1 bedroom for 725/month. That is absolutely absurd. We just moved out and are now in a 2 bedroom in a VERY nice neighborhood (SW) for the same price. If you shop around, you WILL find nicer and cheaper apartments. We even have a little backyard. Thirdly, my boyfriend and I are VERY clean people. We kept the apartment clean, no shoes in the house, no parties. We work full time and attend school, so the time we WERE home we were doing homework or playing video games / watching movies. Upon moving out, I cleaned the apartment from floor to ceiling. While cleaning, I even had to open and close the vertical blinds to open the sliding glass window to let air circulate (important information). We just received a letter stating what was taken out of our deposit, and one of the amounts was $80.00 for VIRTICAL BLINDS. My boyfriend called the apartment manager, Liz, who is very pleasant until you move out apparently, and explained to her that we had furniture in front of the blinds and never used them because we were never home to even go out on the patio. She just kept saying, “They were broken”. Maybe she didn’t do the apartment inspection afterwards, but if she did, shame on her. That is an outright lie. These are also our first apartments. Next time we at least know better to use our cell phones to take actual VIDEO of the functioning blinds, or try and find time to be present during the inspection. That’s ridiculous. $80.00 might not seem like a lot, but to college students who are making it on their own it sure is. Shame on the complex, shame on the manager, and shame on the Royal T Management company. Where did all the honesty go…?