Briarwood Apartments College Station Review

As posted on July 14th, 2009, on ApartmentRatings.com

The apartment unit that I and my two other roommates lived in at Briarwood was great. It was very clean and the carpet was spotless. The maintenance people were reliable so that we never have problems with AC, cable and internet, water leaks, etc. The neighbors were relatively quite, even on the weekend. Also, we always had ample parking space for our second car.

The problems--or should I say nightmares--we had were always with the management, upper and staff levels alike.

1. They went out of their way to change legal document
A few weeks after we moved in June 2008, we received a notice that we still owed them a few hundred dollars for moving in which need to be paid BTOB the next day. We found out that one of their office people managed to change a date on an original paper we all signed for moving in (not a contract, but still it is illegal) to show us that we had money due. That matters got resolved, though, but not until we threatened to bring it to school attorney.

2. They were not consistent on their policy towards money, i.e., be prepared to fight or pay.
Still, toward the end of the contract, my two roommates wanted to stay for convenience, as they are going to graduate soon. My roommates inquired about the money they had to pay in order to move to a 2-bedroom unit. There was a complication since we were staying at a 3-bedroom unit and we had paid that half month rent in advance when we signed the contract for the 3-bedroom. They kept changing their answer day-to-day. But no matter what the answer was, it would cost my roommates a fortune to stay. After a lot of “fightings” with the office people (manager kept leaving office hour right on the dot at 4 PM), my roommates decided to not renewing the contract. FYI, by this time, Briarwood was under yet another new management. But they still treat the tenants like bottom feeders. They claimed that my roommates were not granted renewal because my roommates were one step away from committing violence.

3. They, in short, are hustlers
My roommates had final statement after they moved out to the tune of yet another couple hundred dollars, for paintings, cleaning, and changing drip pans. Not so funny thing is one of my roommate had changed the drip pans (she lost the receipt though, but she still had the fifth of the drip plan set that was not used). My roommate went to dispute the charge about the drip plan with the office, they showed her a picture of a dirty cook stove/oven. My roommate was in disbelief and told them she personally cleaned that cook stove/ oven. Also, they refused to tell here when the picture was taken--it can be easily seen from the picture property as it was taken from a digital camera. Personally, we believe they are hustlers, since they only charged 200 something dollars for painting the whole apartment--it probably cost them more than that. They just wanted to have these easy 200 dollars from us and to get back to us from what happened at point # 2 above.

We are bringing these matters to the College Station’s Better Business Bureau and Texas A&M’s Off-Campus Housing office. We will let everyone know the progress of the “case.” In the mean time, caveat emptor for future renters, you should really think about moving in unless you have unlimited amount of money and willing to part from it. We are mostly students here. In my roommates and I case, we are international graduate students. So that might be why we got hustled in the first place.

Sincerely,
Former Tenant, June-August 2008, # 383