Apartment Review for Monaco Park - Tulsa, OK

I didn't actually live there, but my then-fiance (now husband) did and I spent a lot of time at his apartment. He spent a few years there and said that it started out okay, but steadily went downhill. When we first became engaged we considered having me move in there, but after spending some time there and having a few run-ins with the management I refused to live there and he was beyond ready to leave.

Where do I even begin? The apartment looked nice at first glance, but it leaked energy like a broken dam and it had ants and roaches everywhere. The bathroom faucet constantly stuck, the toilet only worked every other flush, and the wall in the shower had a big hole from where it caved in when my husband leaned against it that they never repaired. The carpet was stained from when a pipe burst and flooded the apartment. When that happened the management was willing to pay for a half-assed cleaning job, but refused to replace. And when they moved his furniture to take the carpet out for cleaning, they broke his coffee table and didn't offer so much as an apology.

The grounds also look pretty until closer inspection reveals crumbling walls and sidewalks and buildings that are badly in need of a paint job. The "security" fence was always broken and was better at keeping out tenants and legitimate guests than actual trouble-makers. About a year before we met they removed the privacy fence from his patio and never replaced it, so anybody using the swimming pool could see directly into his apartment and we could see and hear everything going on out there--including the office staff hanging out by the pool all day complaining loudly about the tenants.

Speaking of the staff--I really think the office manager might have some kind of chemical imbalance. She can go from sweet to hateful and irrational at the drop of a hat. Her behavior is extremely unprofessional, at times bordering on psychotic. Every complaint I mentioned above would have been tolerable if we didn't have to deal with this woman on top of it all. Highlights of our dealings with her include her coming up to us while we were getting groceries out of the car to tell us it was inappropriate for my fiance to kiss me goodnight when he walked me out to my car at the end of our dates, basically calling me a tramp with no self-respect, and then storming away into her office and locking herself inside when he tried to speak up on my behalf. This actually ended with her physically shoving him when he tried to follow her into the office, the door of which was standing wide open at the time, and then slamming the door shut on his hand. And lest you think Leinbach Co. is any better, when we tried to lodge a formal complaint about her, we were pretty much given the brush off.

Another incident occurred after he asked to break his lease in preparation to move in with me following our wedding. She told him that they required 60 days' notice and that he would have to find someone to take over his lease until it ran out. He gave them the required written notice and started looking for someone to take over the apartment. Another tenant who was looking to change location within the complex heard about his apartment through the grapevine and came to inquire about it. She was pretty much decided upon taking over his apartment when she went to discuss it with the office manager, who for God only knows what reason berated this tenant and scolded her like she was a small child for "going behind her back" to check out the apartment. Needless to say, this tenant decided that once her lease was up she would just move out of Monaco Park altogether. One point in the office manager's favor is that she felt remorseful for chasing off our prospect, and took it upon herself to find someone to take over the apartment.

Shortly after all of this, an apartment the next building over caught fire and nearly burned to the ground. My husband's apartment suffered severe smoke damage and he could no longer stand to live there. Thinking his lease was taken care of, he went ahead and moved his things into my house. About a month later he received a letter informing him that the other prospective tenant backed out at the last minute because A) the apartment smelled like smoke (duh) and B) she didn't like the color of the panelling in the kitchen. It also contained an itemized list of completely ridiculous and unethical charges, not only for the rent for the remainder of his lease, but also for the carpet that THEY ruined, for a new paint job to cover the smoke damage from his neighbor's fire, for cleaning fees that should have been covered by his cleaning deposit, and for utilities that he wasn't there to use. They threatened to turn it over to a collection agency and report it to all of the credit bureaus if he didn't pay. He wrote them a formal letter disputing the charges and threatening to hire an attorney if they took any action to collect, and also threatening to report their practices to all of the local news stations. Other than a message the office manager left at his workplace, we haven't heard from them since. Hopefully, our dealings with those people are over. I can safely promise that we will never even consider renting a Leinbach Co. property ever again.