Cambridge Woods Apartamentos

Good location for USF. The units are old but basically fine. It’s nice to have the ponds and green spaces. The pools are standard. The gym is small and the equipment looks like hand-me-downs (and the ac is constantly broken). Office folk have always been friendly to me. The old maintenance guy was great, but I haven’t seen him around for a while (and response from maintenance seems to have suffered for his absence—I hope he’s okay).

The main concern is the ever increasing fees. Know that the... advertised rate is before $300 (give or take) in non-negotiable fees. They will also try to increase your rent by almost 20% every year! Those fees include about $40 for trash, even though they recently stopped recycling (fees were not adjusted). Worst of all, while they charge $25 per resident for parking, they’ve just made guest parking pay-by-plate. So if you want to live here, it’s gonna cost you (or your guests) extra if you wanna host a game night; every time your significant other stops by, pay up; family coming to visit? Dad better download that parking app before he gets there.

They announced the guest parking thing a while ago and enough residents complained that they agreed to drop it. Then they installed just a few pay-to-park signs, and now it’s all but 7 (for hundreds of residents). I know their problem was that some residents weren’t buying passes and were just parking in guest spaces, but that wasn’t a problem for me. There was still plenty of available parking for me and any guests I might have over. So basically, they’ve found a way to get more money out of my neighbors that also gets more money out of me!

(I assume numbers here will differ across tenants / I could have made some calculation errors in this post (but it isn’t about the numbers))

Rating Transparency: *Two stars because this system says 2 stars is “ok,” 3 stars “good”* | without the fee problem, I might go as high as 3.5 (4 is “great,” 5 is “excellent”). Lee mas

This place is not luxurious. It’s extremely expensive and you’ll be living with thousands of spiders and roaches.

We had so many small issues, that eventually just added up and up and up. Glad we were only there for 7 months. Nothing was straight forward. They would not help with our cockroach situation (saw 3-4 a day). A cabinet door fell down and broke an expensive water pitcher, and it was pulling teeth to even get them to pay for 1/2 of it. So many problems with billing. Mistakes were always made and no one would take the time to help us figure it out. Renting should NOT be such a headache!

Worst place to live, charged almost a month rent during moveout. Even though we cleaned everything and handed over. Last month rent will be very high almost double and forget about your deposits and advance month rent, over all this they charge extra around $1000 which is a nightmare, they don't even give reasons for charge.

The overall ambiance of the apartment complex is lovely. Lots of trees and greenery. I enjoy that it does not feel like a high rise or anything too corporate- it has a neighbourhood feel, which is wonderful considering it is so close to the USF campus. It is mostly quiet with few students (at least, none of the loud partying students).
The interior of the apartments are lovely with updated features for lighting and kitchen appliances. The staff has been wonderful with all of my questions and the... occasional request.
I have heard different experiences from mine, and I am fairly low maintenance as a tenant as long as I get what I am promised from signing the lease. Lee mas