Black Swan Apartments

DO NOT LIVE HERE
I’ve lived here for 6 months and almost every month there is a new huge problem that the staff drags their feet fixing. First off, there is no leasing office on site and it is impossible to get a hold of anyone. Some of the FourStar realty lines don’t even have record of Black Swan being one of their buildings. When I moved in, I noticed really bad water damage on the ceiling in almost every room of the house and brought it to their attention in the first walk through of the... house. The first time there was leaking from my ceiling they sent a roofer and said they would fix it. A few weeks later the full ceiling of my bedroom became a sieve and I couldn’t even sleep in my bed because there was so many different spots leaking. I was told I would receive rent reimbursement for the days that it was leaking and I was never credited. I am not even sure they fixed it as the communication here is worthless and I haven’t seen any maintenance staff come by. As if water wasn’t enough, the whole building didn’t have heat for the month of November and they waited over a week in the middle of the winter to give us one space heater for our two bedroom apartment. After all the issues we have had with the overpriced utilities, they started charging us for laundry in the middle of our lease with no prior agreement or even notification. Do not waste your time or money on this overpriced, under functioning, and under managed apartment complex. Lee mas

Building management is ATROCIOUS. They will refuse to act on absolutely any issues in the building unless you call to complain first. The sidewalks and parking lot are routinely a block of ice after it snows and very hazardous, they do not clean it up unless someone complains, which can take days/weeks. We were without heat for weeks during the winter because they were so slow to replace the boiler for the building after it broke and were forced to run space heaters 24/7 until it was fixed. The... pool was supposed to be open by Memorial Day last year, it took them until JULY to open it and it was closed promptly on Labor Day weekend, so expect to only be able to use it for ~2 months out of the year! If you want anything other than a basic repair done in your apartment good luck because they have to get it approved by the building owner, who, in their own words, is notoriously hard to get ahold of. And to top it all off today, out of the blue, they decided to take our laundry/dryer machines in the common area that have been free this whole time and started charging us for them. They called it an "upgrade" in the email announcing this move LOL. Same ancient washers, same borderline non-functional dryers that break regularly, but now we have to pay for them. Some "upgrade!" Not to mention that your clothes will routinely be stolen out of the washer/dryer. Same with packages that have been delivered. When we complained about all the theft they refused to install cameras on the property because they said cameras are "pointless"(???) Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere in Denver for a place to live, YOU WILL ABSOLUTELY REGRET MOVING HERE. Lee mas

Company is not responsive to maintenance requests for such things as: broken elevator, broken A/C, broken smoke detectors, leaky roof, terrible smell coming from sink. They add creative charges to your rent, such as $4/mo in order to pay via their payment portal (you're not allowed to send checks), $20/mo for the owner's insurance (you must also carry your own renters insurance), $15/mo for property management (unclear what that covers, given the lack of response to repair requests). The utility... bill is a black box but covers things like watering the paved road next to the apartment and the dirt where grass last lived two or more years ago. Completely extractive and not helpful. Impossible to get anything resolved by calling or talking to people, despite best efforts. Lee mas

Apartments are overpriced for what you get.
The units are newly renovated, although the infrastructure of the building is very old. The building doesn't have too many units which is nice, but if you plan on using the elevator while living in one of the upper floors please reconsider because the elevator is consistently breaking down and needing repairs.

The units themselves seem to have little to no insulation. Each unit is outfitted with a AC unit built into the wall; but if you get a corner... unit the AC unit is located right next to sliding glass doors for the patio, so you loose all the energy immediately. I cannot understate how HOT it is in this building durring the summer. We even bought an additional AC unit for the bedroom and it barley cools the room down after consistently running for hours. IT IS SO HOT IN HERE. For what units cost here, it is worth looking for a place that has central air because the electricity bill alone is going to cost you quite a bit.

The pool on site seems to not be maintained at all; with it being so hot inside the apartment the pool was one feature we looked forward to the most, although it seems to never be cleaned and it is often changing colors from blue to green.. I would not get in the pool.

The location and neighborhood seem to be the best quality, with it being close to both city and cheeseman park with everything in between. Although our car had the catalytic converter cut out from the bottom of it while parked right out front, and cars seem to always be crashed into on 14th and 13th while parked.

We paid over 2k for a two bedroom unit, I would look around before pulling the trigger at black swan, the renovated units do not compensate for all the other downsides. Lee mas

This apartment complex is so slow with important maintenance requests. They don’t communicate during the process and our elevator has been broken on and off since I moved in 3 months ago and probably before that. DO NOT RENT IF YOU ARE DISABLED OR CANT CLIMB STAIRS EVERY DAY. Also our heat wasn’t working for over a month. Worst apartment complex I’ve ever lived in.