How do you know you're walking into a Fineberg establishment? First thing to do is to check their list of currently owned buildings at their website.
Second, and especially if a realtor is showing you around a bunch of places that day, avoid any building that has a visible bright red laminated sign in the entrance foyer saying that roof access is grounds for eviction. -- All fineberg buildings have this red sign.
The reviews here on Yelp for Fineberg management/companies are pretty funny, I've gotten a few laughs myself over how you'd think this kind of service just isn't possible from a company -- but oh, it is. I've read through them all, and I'm laughing (followed by sadness and deep concern) that every single complaint you've read here is true. Don't take what you're reading about Fineberg lightly. If you disregard these reviews and get an apartment, mark my words -- you WILL think back to this very review and think to yourself "You know? I really should've listened to that guy on yelp."
Where do I even begin with my two years here at Mt. Hood Road in Brighton? I suppose I could start with move in.
I, too, was suckered into this place because we were late in the game in apartment hunting. It was our best choice, and based from a short realtor showing, it more than fine for our needs -- it's not like we had time to inspect anything in detail. So, it's true -- no one will come by to clean the apartment at move in. We had to clean everything ourselves. A painting crew did come by to paint the apartment, but they did 2 weeks after we moved in. Maintenance people will show up at the apartment unannounced and do god knows what at any given time, sometimes just to use your apartment as a short-cut to get to the back of the building. Don't be surprised if they accidentally cut your power when working on an adjacent unit.
We didn't notice at the initial showing, but the walls in this apartment are completely appalling. When this building was first erected, the rooms had wallpaper. When fineberg bought the building, it seems like they didn't want to spend the time to remove the wallpaper so they painted right over it. 42 coats of paint later, year after year, the wallpaper and adhesive has disolved, causing the paint to crack absolutely everywhere and form gigantic soft spots (air bubbles) behind. There are some parts of the apartment where the paint on the walls is sagging, melting down over itself like a Dali painting. The floors also look like they've been used for ice hockey practice -- without any ice.
We as well had only one outlet per room in our apartment, and they're all the old 60's style 2-prong type. No grounding in this place, no sir! Our bathroom had no plug at all -- forcing us to run a heavy-duty extension cord out the window of an adjacent bedroom. What's worse, the wiring in the apartment is so old, we only had 15 amps of power TOTAL to the whole apartment -- a 3 bedroom apartment -- 15 amps. If you want to use a vacuum cleaner, you're gonna have to turn off everything else first, guaranteed. Absolutely forget about installing an air-conditioner, you'll blow th
Then there's the kitchen. You know how some other reviewers here talk about their floors being cheap, impossible-to-clean plastic? Get this -- not only are our floor plastic, but all of our cabinets and drawers are too. Plastic! Plastic that was molded and painted to look like wood. It's one of those details we didn't notice in the initial showing. When we found out that the kitchen was completely made out of plastic, that's when we felt duped. You pull out a drawer, and it screeches from the cheap plastic rubbing against cheap plastic. Step2 could have done a better job making this kitchen.
Over my two years here, we've had over 100 mouse sightings, countless more house-centipede sightings, and more than a couple humungous spider sightings. Since fineberg never did a thing about the mouse problem, we were forced to take matters into our own hands with live traps. (Sorry, I can't deal with glue/snap traps.) With just one trap, I caught 7 mice -- and that was still not enough to get all of them. To this day, mice are still an issue, leaving collections of poo absolutely everywhere, especially in our stove and pantry. Even our bedrooms! Why?!
To this day, they still have not replaced the shattered (yes shattered) window pane, and windows with broken vertical-release locks in our living room that we informed them about at move in.
They still have not sealed the 4+ holes in the walls and floor in which vermin enter.
After I leave this forsaken place, they will likely not remodel it for the next poor sap either.
I could go on and on -- really, there's THAT much to say. But, it seems I'm limited to a 5000 character limit...
So I'll leave it to this: Just Say No to Fineberg. Remember the warning signs. read more