Ara Residences Townhomes

To Management: We have moved out over 14 days ago and we still have not heard or received any communication about our deposit.

To all future residents, you can't get ahold of anyone and like us, you may struggle to get your deposit back it the future.

They never respond to resident’s e-mails, concerns, questions. They only seem to respond regarding rent and your lease. There is no physical office, there is no reliable phone number, the e-mails are a waste of time, & it was just a very horrible experience and I’m glad I only signed a 6month lease because I can’t imagine staying here for a year.

My experience as a resident at Ara Residents was filled with frustration, confusion, and a lot of time spent trying to get someone, anyone, to respond to my calls and email.

Getting my application approved was a process that took nearly three weeks and at least five unanswered emails. In what would be a common occurrence during my time with Ara, I could only get a response after reaching out to the organization's national parent company, AMC - an incredibly frustrating experience, not the... least of which was because of the application itself cost $100.

The nickel-and-diming doesn't stop there. If you have a pet - Ara makes a big deal of advertising that all the units come with dog doors and has a dog run - you will pay pet rent, a non-refundable pet fee, and a pet deposit. If there is something this company can add a fee to, you can expect to pay it.

When we moved in, the office was clearly in disarray. I had been asked to provide an exact time of arrival so that someone from management could meet us at the unit to give us our keys and move in materials. The person ended up being more than half an hour late, leaving us sitting outside in the driveway. When we tried calling the office, we found the phone disconnected.

When she finally arrived, we received no apology, and she had forgotten most of the materials we needed to move in. We were not given a gate key, a garage door opener, any of our login information needed to pay our rent, information on moving the electricity into our name, etc. All of the batteries were dead in the smart home system we were being charged $90 a month for, and the electric lock on the front door was broken. Once again, getting these issues dealt with took days as my emails went unanswered and the office's phone was still disconnected (this has since been fixed, but the phone is never answered and the mailbox has been full for months - so it might as well be disconnected). I ended up having to drive to their offices, where I was told I should have arranged for an appointment.

The unit itself had not been professionally cleaned before we moved in. The floors were covered in a layer of dirt and we found makeup and false eyelashes embedded into the carpets in the bedrooms. We also found chunks of hair in the shower drains and the kitchen sink was full of chewed sunflower seeds.

The units themselves are quite nice, but there is no excuse for the unprofessional and disorganized management for what you are paying in rent. Lee mas