Apartment Review for The Villages Of Monterey - Oceanside, CA

I'm writing this review so others don't get into the same situation as we did. My husband and I were looking for apartments to move into in the Oceanside area from Arizona because my husband got stationed at Camp Pendleton. When we seen the Villages of Monterey, we were really excited. The area looks really nice and the model home they showed us was awesome. They had great cabinet space, nice appliances, wood flooring in the bathroom, closet, and front entry, and they had mirrors on the closet doors which we thought was a nice feature. The price was also pretty good at the time. Our leasing agent was friendly and did what she could to make us feel at home. We paid first months rent and a $900 deposit. When it was time to move in and do the walk thru, we were surprised at the apartment they put us in. The appliances were severely outdated, the carpet wasn't fully connected to the walls, and it smelled funny. We were also told that the mirrors on the closet doors and wood flooring would be there and they weren't. There was only wood flooring in the walk-in closet. We assumed that since the price was so low, that's why we didn't get all the things we were told we would get. We weren't gonna make a big deal of it anyways. A month or two goes by and our appliances started going out. All of them BUT the microwave and oven. We had to call twice for the washer/dryer cause as soon as one went out and was fixed, the other stopped working. We had to call to help out with the bugs cause we were seeing spiders all over our apartment. I actually had a couple crawl on me when I was sitting on my couch. We also told our leasing agent that the smell wasn't going away. She wrote it down and said they will take care of it but never did. 5 months goes by and my husband and I have to break our lease because he got orders to leave for NC for 3 months and since I was 5 1/2 months pregnant, he didn't want me in a state with no one. So I spent two days cleaning the apartment up along with my sister in law and little brother who came down to AZ to help me. The apartment was so clean that it looked better than when we moved in! A maintanace man came in looked it over and told me he had to tear the carpet up to see if there were any stains. Low and behold there was a MASSIVE brownish yellow stain that WAS NOT noticable when we lived there. I told him that's probably why it smelled so bad in there. He said give them a couple days to look over our lease agreement and the pictures of the carpet before we can get our deposit back. A week or two later, they send me a letter saying we were only getting $93 back from our deposit.... out of $900! They charged me for paint, 3 hours of cleaning, some utility bill fees, AND to recarpet the whole place. Basically they remodeled our apartment on our dime. The idomized statement said they had to replace the carpet due to "pet damages". We NEVER had pets and it was never put on our lease agreement that we had pets. No deposit or rent was asked for. Not only that, this stain could NOT have been done by an animal, except maybe a horse. I called... no answer. I emailed... no answer. So I typed them up a letter and sent it certificted return reciept so I know the manager got it. I basically told her why we shouldn't have to pay these fees and that they have a couple weeks to respond or I was gonna ask for legal assistance. They finally responded a day or two before the due date and basically told me it wasn't her fault or her decision to contact their property manager if I want my money back. She did send me a check for the paint and cleaning charge. So I had to type another letter to the propery manager saying the same thing. She was quick to give us our money back. What made me mad through this whole thing was they seriously tried taking all of our money and took FOREVER to get any respond back from them. As soon as we mentioned that we would take them to court, they quickly gave us our money back. So I advise anyone who wants to move here, take LOTS of pictures, set a good papertrail because these people will rob you of your money. And just cause your in the military, doesn't mean you get special service from them... just means your a good profit. When I read the good reviews, I get jealous because living there was the worst idea we've ever made. Hope this was helpful.