Apartment Review for Parsons House - Richmond, VA

We just left Parsons House in a small general exodus of people. Although the place seemed perfect from the outside and the staff were very friendly, the house itself is extremely shoddy. Paint has been spilled down the walls and onto windows, effectively locking them into place, there are huge gaps between doorways and walls and many various holes into the apartments from outside which cockroaches and rats use to enter. We tried complaining about the bugs, etc. but were told by maintenance staff that people who have clean apartments won't have that problem. The problem here is that both my husband and my upstairs neighbor are EXTREME clean freaks. There was never a plate left in the sink, so to speak. When maintenance does come to deal with an issue they invariably do an indifferent job and end up having to come back time and again. For instance, our bathtub sealant wore down and the guy had to fix it three times - because he used LATEX to try to seal it and didn't understand why it washed away each day. We also had extreme water damage from unsealed bathroom fixtures which destroyed $1,000 worth of property and maintenance did not come for almost two weeks, nevermind that we literally had mushrooms growing out of the floor. They eventually came around after I visited the office in person in a very agitated state. Soon after we'd had enough and left, our friends upstairs had a visit from Mr. Rat and his friends. Monroe Properties did not see fit to fix this problem either and our friends ended up trapping the rats before the decided to get out of Dodge. Another lady, only one week into her lease, found a rat and decided she would find another apartment. The yard is also not immune to neglect. Staff often plant trees and flowers only to let them die and rot in place because no one will water them. The yard crew uses a weedwhacker to "mow" the lawn and only in sections. Finally, the apartments themselves, billed as "luxury" lack even the basics of "luxurious" living. They do not have washers and dryers and some still have old appliances even though we were told they were new and stainless steel. The countertops are of the cheapest kind and the hardwood floors in our unit were stained from dripping paint and other maintenance issues. This is not really so terrible but I cannot imagine trying to sell this as luxury.