So, in August 2009, after almost 4 years in Little Italy, my bestie and I moved into one of the two…read morePenthouse units at the Marquis Historic Lofts in Hillcrest. The 'hard sale' wasn't actually hard at all - the place was beautiful & sold itself: the entire building had been completely refurbed and refreshed, penthouse was large (1,500+ sq ft), 2 ginormous bedrooms, 2 full bathrooms, high ceilings, hardwood floors, massive private rooftop patio, formal dining room, 2 fireplaces, upgraded fixtures and views to die for. Score, right.
Wait...it gets better.
The hard sell came replete with 'amenities': 24-hour business center, free building-wide WiFi, card-operated laundry facilities, a workout room, Yoga studio, gated private parking, talk of resident social events and all the charm & bragging rights associated with living in a 'San Diego historic landmark."
We signed the day we saw it. $2,700/mo to us was a steal for what we were suppose to be getting in 'lifestyle' and 'location.'
Well, don't get swept up in this dream-like diary just yet. The lifestyle sold to us at the Marquis in August 2009 has quickly turned into a nightmare of astronomical proportions. And, as previous posters have attested, the brunt of the fault can be placed on the building management's shoulders: Starpoint Properties.
I'll give you a quick synop of the not so great: no rods in the closets to hang clothes, no 'working' fireplace (they're just for show,) no weather stripping in the windows, no shelves in the kitchen cabinets (not one,) broken bathroom window, no working telephone jacks in the unit, no heat source in the living space (trust it gets cold 5 stories up mid winter,) electric wall heaters in the bedrooms - requiring the installation of special high-voltage outlets to operate - causing utility bills to skyrocket, a chronically defunct elevator that provides the only interior access to the basement storage/laundry room/trash/gym, NO free building-wide WiFi, NO card operated laundry facilities, business center that closes at 5PM, a constantly absent manager and mounting frustrations about little fixes that take FOR-EV-ER to complete...and that's just the little stuff I can remember.
To be fair, some things have been handled, albeit on the cheap and on the mgmt's own timetable. We can hang clothes now, windows are draftless and we have a telephone jack.
But, to give you a sense of what we're dealing with here - before I get to the big Marquis fail - I'll give you a number. Six. Yes, 6. That's how many months it took to get the broken bathroom window replaced. Just sayin'.
So, in December 2009, the first of the major winter rainstorms barraged San Diego. Up in la Penthouse de Marquis, mgmt apparently thought we were ducks. The roof leaked water...falls, not drips. The leak completely saturated the entire southern wall of our unit, gushing from the ceiling like Niagra. A river of water traveled throughout the dining room and one bedroom. The walls: shot. Why? Well, not only did the water gush over them, it gushed behind them...through all the nooks, cranies and cracks of their cement and plaster make-up. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to know this can't be good.
Marquis mgmt attempted a quick-fix solution to the roof leak. But, since the moisture problem in the walls was never adequately addressed, Black Mold set in. When I brought this to their attention, they came to 'assess' the interior situation and concluded that they'd have to tear out the walls, and replace them. Uh, ya.
So, after a milieu of fawk-ups, slack workers passing time, tear down dust & debris, bleach treatments, more rain and leaks, carpet dryers, dehumidifiers, Black Mold, mounting tensions over our living situation (for 3 FRACKING MONTHS) and one mgmt company that has quickly become a four letter word out the mouths of tenants - including our neighbors in the other penthouse who are experiencing the exact same problem - we come to today, March 29. The issue: still not fixed! We live in a construction zone of taped-off, plastic draped, torn out walls, and one quasi-completed wall that must now be torn out, again, due to improper leak repair.
After three months living like this and countless back and forth emails with mgmt and mgmt's mgmt, we reached our breaking point. We refuse to pay $2,700/mo to live in this mess with seemingly no view to the finish line. Happiness ensued when we reached an agreement on February's rent which they agreed to waive (damn straight.) But now, it's the end of March, and still NOTHING has been done to fix our unit. WTF.
To ad insult to injury, we've been served with a three day pay or quit notice for March...with the caveat that they'll concede 10 percent of rent for our "troubles." Um, no. Sorry. Time to go. And, that's exactly what we're doing.
Some advice to prospective residents, be weary. They'll try to sell you a Ferrari, but what you're getting is a Fiat, and I don't mean just the building. #fail