Review of Altamonte Apartments, San Antonio, TX 78216

Review of Altamonte Apartments
12474 Starcrest Dr.
San Antonio, TX 78216

Video of flooding: https://vimeo.com/426107260

Too Long Didn't Read? TLDR: Don't live here if you have a choice. It's not worth the negatives. There's a lot of negatives. It's depressing. The business and community sucks.

I lived here for 6-7 years and moved out in 2020. This is going to be a detailed review with my personal experience on the good, bad and ugly (if you enjoy reading dumb, unfair, scummy, and cringe things, this will be fun for you).

--------------------
----- The Good -----
--------------------

(1) The rent is a decently competitive price, but naturally it's slowly went up over the years.
(2) You have the option to qualify to rent if you can pay 6 months of rent up front.
(3) You don't need renter’s insurance.
(4) The complex is in a pretty good location.
(5) There's no parking pass, and parking isn't really a problem.
(6) Their laundry facilities are passable; you just need to deal with having a laundry card (some apartments have built in laundry connections if you have a washer/dryer).

-------------------
----- The Bad -----
-------------------

(1) If you want something to be fixed in your apartment, they either completely forget about it; say they fixed it, but it's still not fixed; or they say they'll fix it, but they "forget". The maintenance people will basically choose the lowest-effort option. For example: my toilet wouldn't flush properly 50% of the time (needed more water to be in the tank). It took 3 requests from me. The first 2 times, they only replaced the flap inside the tank. It of course didn't change anything. I had to investigate the issue myself, request them a 3rd time, I had to tell them they had to fix the height of the pipe inside the tank. They didn't believe me, came to replace the flap AGAIN, and then they finally caved and did a DIY fix to make the pipe taller. This 3rd time I stayed, watched and supervised them. The toilet now flushes properly like 95% of the time.

(2) If you have loud neighbors (you will) you'll be constantly annoyed. You WILL hear when they're talking outside, or stomping upstairs, or opening and closing drawers, or laughing loudly, or "making bed-squeaking love" (plz rescue me). The walls are very thin. You will hear all outside noises easily. If someone is playing loud music or watching a movie loudly, you will hear it. If they have decent bass, your building, floor, and furniture will vibrate. You'll hear the leaf blowers and lawn mowers loudly. You'll hear the "cool guys" (sarcasm) with loud cars/trucks every time they leave and return (especially late at night).

(3) If you want friends over, be prepared to open the gate for them, or they'll be waiting at the gate to try to follow someone in. You need a card to get in the gate, or you can pay $50 for a gate-door clicker/opener. There is no code, and there is no call-in option. Also, there are 2 different sections to the complex, so it can be more complicated to tell someone how to get to you.

(4) The laundry facilities have small washers and dryers; you might need to use 2 at a time. Many people use 2 or more. Some of the machines may often be "out of order." I found it better to go to a 24-hour laundromat a few minutes away.

(5) Some things like windows, doors, seals, or things like that are most likely not properly maintained or fixed. Both my windows feel not aligned and feel like they don't close and lock correctly. This can let bugs, pollen, dust, and sound in through the cracks (gross dirt and pollen always builds up on my windowsill). The same thing goes for the front door and its weather stripping. For my front door, I can see sunlight coming through the cracks of the door frame. And one of my bathroom doors doesn't fit properly, so it'll scrape at the top of the door frame every time you try to open and close it.

(6) People have dogs, and they do not pick up their dog's poop outside. You will walk outside and see many dog-poop landmines in the grass and pebbles. They office occasionally sends a stern email about it, but it doesn't help (I'm pretty sure barely anyone even reads it or sees their community emails). I believe they recently had to hire dog-poop-picker-uppers or something, and it goes to show that no one in this community cares.

(7) Outside will be dirty. There will be cigarette buds on the ground. Sometimes even beer cans and fast-food trash. You will probably smell cigarette smoke, dog poop, and possibly marijuana outside. Every week when they have the leaf blower people come, your car will get dirty with dirt and pollen. Be prepared to be annoyed.

--------------------
----- The UGLY -----
--------------------

PLEASE READ THIS PART.

(1) Do NOT live on the first floor of Building 13 in Phase 1. When I lived there (2014-2016), the first-floor apartments flooded when it rains. It flooded basically every time it rained. They had to redo the carpeting twice (and they did it without telling me, entered my home and moved my stuff without telling me), and I complained so much they moved me to another apartment building. And HERE'S THE THING: they STILL move people into those apartments. I've talked to a resident (single, disabled veteran) that was moved into the apartment I used to be in, and they didn't tell them it floods. The resident had to live with it until the lease was over. PLEASE, ask them if the apartment floods. ESPECIALLY if they want to put you in Building 13 Phase 1. Audio/video record it. They technically "compensated" me, so I was legally silenced in a way. They told me they were going to fix it back in Fall 2014, and they haven't fixed it to my knowledge. If you get moved in there, talk to your neighbors about it, contact me if you can/want. Nothing was done about it, and the residents were forced to deal with it.

(2) IF YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS BAD... later, it came close for me to need to renew my lease next month. Naturally, the office contacted me about it. The conversation was basically: OFFICE; "Hi, I'm contacting you about renewing your lease. Oh, by the way we saw your review of us online. It's pretty mean. It'd be really swell if you deleted it." ME; "Oh, uh, ok? So, about my lease?" OFFICE; "Yeah! So, you're going to delete the review, right?" ME; "Uh, ok then? Sure?" OFFICE; "Great! We will contact you again soon about your lease." END. In case I didn't portray it well, they were low-key blackmailing me to delete my review, or they wouldn't go forward with renewing my lease. I'm serious. They mentioned taking it down like 5 times during the call. When I asked about renewing my lease, they'd just mention taking down the review. They didn't contact me again until a day or so after I deleted the review. I hope that tells you something about this apartment complex and the management. How about that 1st Amendment? (This is even an alternate review account I made so that they won't track me down again like last time, just in case)

(3) On living quality, if someone is smoking cigarettes or marijuana inside their apartment, you will smell it inside your apartment. ALL your stuff WILL smell like gross cigarette-smell residue. When I moved out, all my stuff smelled like cigarettes, and I couldn't clearly notice before because I lived with it for years. Below me, they smoke cigarettes. I believe they smoke mostly in their bathroom. I discovered this because one time I left for vacation for a while, came back (turned the A/C to 85 to save electric money while I was gone) and my entire apartment smelled like a cheap smokers' hotel room. It was throw-up-inducing gagging. I had to super air out my apartment, and I now keep my bathroom doors closed, and plugged at the bottom of the doors with towels. It barely helps. It sucks when you need to shower or use the toilet, and you walk it and it smells like cigarette smoke. At least I mostly prevented it from coming into the rest of my apartment (at least, from what my nose could tell). The difference was night and day smelling inside my bathroom to smelling anywhere else. And no, the apartment people/management cannot do anything for you, I've tried (3 times). You're just stuck dealing with it.

(4) And to top it all off, here's the last of their scummy business that I had to deal with. So, I needed to move out, and they quickly replied. They said we could work something out, or we can get a different payment plan, stuff like that. We shared a few emails, and I restated multiple times that I just wanted to leave. The bottom line was they wanted me to stay. They want your money. You will just be another monetary figure to them. Another statistic. So, after I told them "no thanks, please, I need to leave, I'm going to move out" I heard nothing from them anymore. Radio silence. They didn't even reply with something like "oh, that's too bad, ok, move out by this date and you're good." They didn't even acknowledge me when I returned the keys and stuff. I got nothing. No response. As soon as I stopped being a source of income to them, they no longer gave me any attention. It's how they will see you and treat you too.

-----------------------
----- Final words -----
-----------------------

If you don't get scammed with the flooding apartments, don't mind scummy business practices, scummy employees, and a crap-hole community, everything else is just a possible inconvenience that you can try to deal with. If you mostly work every day, go out, and/or sit at your computer with noise isolating headphones, you can probably tolerate living here. I know it's a lot more bad stuff than good, but you can still consider living here if you absolutely need to. Just be prepared to have your patience and depression tested. You will hate your neighbors. You will hate the management. You will hate the maintenance.

Please remember this review.