La Cha-Farel Condos

If I could give this place negative starts I would. The building manager acts as though he cares yet when something needs repairs he lags it and makes excuses as to why he didn’t complete it in a timely manner. Also when he makes a mistake he makes excuses and tries to turn the blame to the tenant.
There are tons of kids that live in the building and most of them are very well behaved, however there are a few who are permitted to run wild. They run up and down the halls pounding on wall, ride bikes, play with balls and play hide and seek in the parking garage. On several occasions I’ve caught these kids hitting cars with balls and even playing in the dumpsters which are located in the garage.
The stairways are disgusting as some disrespectful tenants throw trash and cigarette butts all over the place. I lived here for over a year and not once was any of the trash been picked up. The worst was when someone urinated in the elevator. The elevator smelled like urine for more than a week.
Save your money and go somewhere where the building manager actually does their job and takes pride in the property they manage.

I have lived in these apartments (not sure why they are called condos) for about 5 months now thinking it would get better. It hasn’t.
Let me start with George the property manager. He is a liar and does not take care of his tenants very well. He promises things during the walk through such as a new fridge/​stove top and even promised to get a microwave (the unit didn’t have one at the time it was showed) but I have none of what was mentioned. He in fact told me no he didn’t say that during the walk through etc. I have asked twice in writing for the microwave and he still hasn’t come through on that. He gave an excuse that they have other rentals to overhaul and that he will get me one when they are finished with the others– fat chance for me. There are also bugs in the apartment, I’m not sure what they are but I see them on the daily. I sent a written notice that I have bugs and I’d like it taken care of but I never got a phone call, knock on my door or a letter saying they would do anything about it. It’s about a month later now and the bugs are still here.
As the unit was being showed to me I was told it was a quiet one and that there were no kids above me… flat out lie. There are 2 brats above me that I have had to tell them twice now to keep it down. I actually went to George first and told him I’d appreciate it if he could have them keep it down and he turned it back on me and said thats my job– that we are all «parents» and have to talk to each other about stuff. Ok George, whatever.
A few things that bug me about the place– you have to have a key to get through every door in the damn building. If you are in the parking basement then you have to have a key to get into the building or a remote to go out the gate– I’m pretty sure there has to be some sort of law against this for fire safety because there is literally no way of getting out if you don’t have the key or remote. There is storage in cabinets in front of each parking spot that is a free-​for-​all. You just have to find one and put your own lock on it– I never tried but what ends up happening is people just leave their junk all around in front of their cars. If you are over 6ft tall forget about having a nice shower– the shower head is about 6 inches to low (I can’t really give a minus on this one, it’s just how it was built). BART is literally a stones throw away, if you’re a light sleeper forget about it, you won’t get a second of sleep. That was another thing that was down played by George– he told me oh ya its not very loud and it’s only during the business hours so when you get home you wont really hear it. That is my fault about not sitting there to hear all the trains go by. The trains coming from Berkeley are quiet, the ones leaving from El Cerrito Plaza are VERY noisy.
My advice, it’s not worth the $ 1095/​month for this heaping pile of junk apartment complex. two thumbs down.