Arnel and Affiliates

Had a terrible experience with a female from corporate that arrived at my residence to solve a complaint. Unprofessional and rude to say the least. Left a message and am waiting for a response. The property I’m currently at has several issues from tenants, to pets, to security issues.

Read up on the owner of arnel… Scamming people for years with multiple civil suits. Also read up on his henchmen Jim Jones… Threatening people and harassment charges up the a**… Scum lords for sure. Do not rent at any of their properties but if you do keep a lawyers number and code enforcement on file.

They are the worst place to rent from the apartments are run down with termites and roaches. and other issues in the apartment and they they charge so much money it is not worth it u can go to Irvine co and get a new place for the same SF. U be sorry if u rent there. U will not get your deposit back they will find a reason not to give it to u. U have been been given heads up. I had 3 days to find a place that will rent to me for 3 months and I did not read the reviews if I had I would have saved a lot of stress.

I agree with what almost everyone here is saying; dogs barking, security issues, all of it.
The bottom line, I think, is that this company is here to take all the money they can while spending NONE of their own, and they have become too greedy and too lazy. Arnel is owned by multi billionaire George Argyros, and I’m sure that if he felt like making things better, there is enough money to make them better. But, clearly, that is not a priority for him or them.
I just moved out and the company is attempting to illegally withhold my security deposit. I will be taking them to court over this.
REMEMBER, as a tenant you have rights guaranteed to you by law.
Arnel is ignoring those rights, and this will not stop until we know OUR rights.
IF YOU ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH CALIFORNIA TENANT RIGHTS, READ THIS:
THESE ARE YOUR RIGHTS, AND ARNEL IS DEPRIVING YOU OF THEM.
Did you know you can ask the court for extra money for the cost /​time /​hassle of suing?
Yes, even in small claims court.
Read these two documents, and KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.
If you want advice, please contact me and I will share my story with you.

Copied from the Sutton place reveiw posted on ¹²⁄₂₀₁₃
If there was a rating option for ZERO STARS that is what Sutton Place and Arnel Properties would have received! This is the WORST complex and management company I have ever dealt with. We have lived here for 2 years, to long! This will be a very long review but if you want the truth about this place and company I suggest your read it to its entirety.
When we first moved in we were offered a move in special that sounded great, $ 750 deposit and $ 1200 for the first 3 months with a $ 100 increase for the remainder of the one year lease. Management was nice and actually cared about their tenants. Then we quickly realized that they transfer and fire management every 2 months. Any promises or relationships that you establish with the office staff are quickly thrown away and disregarded with the next round of employees.
Laundry is nearly impossible to complete in a timely manner. They only have 2 laundry facilities on the whole premises and half of them are always out of order. Parking is ridiculous and they just implemented a new policy where they will only issue you ONE parking pass. So if you are a family with more than one vehicle you are required to utilize your carport that is nowhere near convenient to your apartment. If you do not they will tow you with no remorse. I have had my car broken into TWICE since I have lived here and they offer no surveillance or security and the parking gates are always jammed open with no option to closed. Leaving it an easy target for theft. I bought a brand new car and could not register it with SP because it was past the closing call time of 9pm when I returned home with it. I Parked it in MY CARPORT STALE only to find it towed the next morning. Sutton Place refused to reimburse me the $ 250 because I did not properly register the vehicle. Well the how could I properly register it when they are not avaible after a certain time frame.
Last year there was an infestation of sick stray cats. One would sit outside our window all night and moew in pain for hours. Told the management on several occasions. Management response «If you catch it, we will call animal control to pick it up» Are you kidding me? The poor thing ended up dying and I called animal control myself. SAD. This year our building has an infestation of mice. Days 3 and they have yet to send an exterminator out or give us a time frame of when we could be expecting them. Myra the manager can only say «HOPEFULLY they will be out today». Meanwhile I am having to keep all of our pantry food in Tupperware and all the pots and pans out on the kitchen table. Praying that we do not get Tyfoid Fever due to this neglect. Not fun living for a family with 2 small children.
In the middle of summer they decided to do construction on the pool which caused it to be closed for 3 weeks during the hottest time of the year.
For a full year they would shut off the water a few times a week with no water utility reimbursements or discounts.
You are only able to have Time Warner cable. Any other company does not suit Sutton Places policies.
They have a NO dog policy but everyone seems to have one including the previous manager and no one can pick up their dogs feces and the bark at all hours of the day and night.
The location of Sutton Place is in direct proximity’s of a motel 6 and Halfway Houses that is known to house prostitutes and drug deals. But of course Sutton Place doesn’t disclose that upon your initial inquiry or signing of the lease.
As for our move in special… We had every intention of moving after the first year but after unfortunate life changes we had no choice or time to look for a new place. Our $ 1200/​$ 1300 rent sky rocketed! Now that we are approaching a 3^rd year they will be increasing the rent above the $ 2000 mark for a small 2 bdrm 1 bth! That is crazy! oh and your $ 750 deposit that they claim is refundable… You will NEVER receive the deposit back. Dont be surprised if you receive a bill in lue of your deposit. I WILL NEVER RECOMMEND SUTTON PLACE TO ANYONE! The state should seize this property and start a new!

Me and my family have renamed this property «Nothing Place». If you are looking for a friendly quite community with great residents, knowledgable staff that has all the amenities… Then this is NOT the place for you. I have lived there for over 2 years and have regretted every day I have been there. Here is a list of all the reasons why you should not rent from them or any other Arnel property.
1. For what you get the rent is too high. Sure they sucker you in with a coupon, but once you sign the lease or even want to renew your lease there is always an increase.
2. Shady and questionable lease agreements. Forging residents signatures and altering documents to cover their incompetent staff.
3. There is obviously no screening process to bring on new residents. They will lease to anyone just to fill their property. Residents that will be pass out drunk or on other substances at the pool area or leave their minor children unsupervised. Not to mention some residents have up to 8 people living in a two bedroom apartment.
4. The westminster police department makes daily visits to the property. There are Regular apartment and car break ins, attempted suicides, spousal abuse, and drug overdose situations. Also it doesn’t help that there is a halfway house and a sketchy motel 6 that is right across from the property.
5. They say no pets. But it seems like just about every resident has a dog, cat, or a 10 foot python in their residence. Yes a 10 foot python!
6. Gated community that has a broken latch on each entrance. Also the car gate only works half the time.
7. There is no chance of maintaining a back yard for a garden or patio furniture. There are so many pine needles and tree sap that it gets to the point where you just give up on the idea of having a back yard.
8. No direct tv. Ridiculous rules about how they cannot attach a satellite to the apartment.
9. The 22 freeway is right in your backyard… literally. Very noisy throughout the entire day.
10. Rats and other vermin. When I told them that I had rats they placed the old school traps in my kitchen. When I told them that they were sprung they told me to dispose of them myself.
11. Parking. If you find a space… that is only half the battle. The other issue is making sure you car is still there in the morning from the parking enforcement company who will tow you even if you are in your assigned carport or not broken into from a fellow resident.
12. Constantly shutting off water to renovate the property. Also there are not enough washer/​dryer to resident ratio and their card system to run the machines is always broken.
13. Management: In the 2 years that I was there, there were 8 property managers. Most of them were not intelligent enough to tie their shoes, much less run a property. Very shady managers that tried to cover their own butts by forging renters agreements, make bogus claims about the condition of the apartment after I moved out. Their corporate office is even worse. They take several days to respond to any issues and never are able to resolve anything.
I would never have anything to do with Arnel properties. You are better off renting from the sleazy motel 6 that is next door. They will at least leave the light on for you.

If you like the idea of building a relationship with management you DON’T want to use Arnel Management. They change their managers monthly after they don’t meet their sales goals. You would think that upper management would get a clue and realize that maybe these dumpy old apartments are over priced. It’s super frustrating when I have to explain an unresolved issue over & over again to management’s face-​of-​the-​month. They don’t get that tenants are their bread & butter. I even had to argue the point that safety, i.e. a malfunctioning lock, should not be a luxury that I have to pay extra for. Oh, and I lost the argument they refused to fix my lock because the office was closing soon. What?! They explained, «well it’s not a true emergency because you were able to get into your apartment eventually». Wow and for that lack of concern, I pay you $ 1,380. a month. I could give more examples but I don’t want to waist time lamenting on the problems with this «Management» company. I recommend Irvine Co. apartments. They understand how to treat their tenants. I was with them for 3 years before I made the mistake of renting from Arnel.
Signed,
See Ya!
P. S. The grounds are well kept, but that’s to reel you in.

DONT! Just… dont!
I worked for this company and honestly I think the short time I spent here will haunt me forever.
They treat everyone terribly, employees and residents. If you think you have met a nice person at Arnel, be cautious. 90% are snakes! You have to be to survive in a company like that.
The apartment communities are just gross. Many employees admit they would never live in an Arnel apartment, because they know how bad it is. So many of the properties have dangerous issues that could hurt a tenant, like the buildings tilting to the right for example! However, the BILLIONARE owner doesn’t give them enough money to fix the mistakes.
My point is basically, whether you are looking to live with Arnel or work for them, just please do yourself a HUGE favor and STAY AWAY!!!

If I could give a negative score, I would.
The management is ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. I’ve been renting from apartments since 2006 and the management here is by far the worst I’ve encountered. Let me explain.
First, the way they handle the security deposit is completely UNETHICAL. When I did the walk-​through, they made it seem like everything was fine. They marked a couple of items on the inspection sheet but told me that there wasn’t anything to worry about so I signed it without giving much thought. Boy did I make a mistake because a couple of weeks later, my wife and I receive a check with a letter stating that a bunch of deductions were made. We got charged for a FULL repainting of our apartment (which was very expensive) even though there were hardly a few scratches. We also got charged for PATIO CLEANING. Are you serious?! We also got charged for carpet cleaning even though the move-​in inspection clearly states that there were already spots on the carpet. My wife and I actually rented a carpet cleaner to clean the carpet! They told me that unless we had the carpet professionally cleaned, we would still have been charged the carpet cleaning fee. This isn’t stated anywhere in any of the contracts/​agreements. If we knew about this policy, we wouldn’t have wasted our money cleaning the carpet. To make matters worse, multiple people told me that these fees are standard charges and that the work we were charged for is always required when a tenant moves out. Why are we and many other tenants being charged for basic/​standard work? What happened to «normal wear and tear»? Furthermore, the appeal process is a sham! All you can do is write a letter to some person at Arnel who of course denied my appeal. This person isn’t even a part of management at South Pointe. I’m guessing many other former tenants have also been scammed in the same way.
Second, the management is unhelpful and unpleasant. Although the majority of staff was actually pretty cool, the boss there is pretty defensive and hostile whenever you try to talk to her. She doesn’t even listen to you (she’s cut me off mid-​sentence many times) and acts like every request/​concern is a slap to her face. She makes it seem like every little thing they do for you is a huge favor that they’re not obligated to do even though all of my requests were pretty basic. Let me give you a couple of examples to illustrate my point.
Incident #1: When my wife and I first moved in, we wanted our friend to stay over for a few days to watch our place while we were away for our honeymoon. We left a key with the management to give to our friend, who returned the key once she left. When we got back, we asked for our spare key back but the boss angrily said that they didn’t have it. They later found it. To make matters worse, they realized that they didn’t even have a spare copy for themselves. Instead of making a copy themselves, they told us to do it. When we told them they should do it, the boss got angry at us again and refused to do it for us, so we begrudgingly did it ourselves.
Incident #2: My wife and I noticed mold growing in our bathroom so we submitted a maintenance request. Someone came in and cleaned it for us. He told us the bathroom fan doesn’t work so we have to turn on the fan for the entire apartment! Even though we thought this was ridiculous, we complied. The mold reappeared. We called management to complain about this but they told us to keep our bathroom door open at all times and even keep open the sliding door in our living room! We complied even though our apartment was always freezing because it was winter, but the mold reappeared! We complained again but they just brushed us off!
Third, it takes forever for maintenance requests to be fulfilled. My wife and I have had to request maintenance many times because many of the appliances/​facilities are old and many times management has told us that it’ll take a week or more for someone to stop by. When we first moved in, there was a little wasp nest on the stairway to our apartment. I asked for them to have it removed and they said that they would do it soon. No one ever came by, so I called again. They said they would do it the next day and when I checked the next day, the wasp nest was still there! I called again and they finally remove it. Imagine running through several wasps every time you go in or out of your apartment!
Lastly, in addition to all this, there’s never any unassigned parking spots available, the car gate is always broken/​open, and most of the grills in the community space don’t work.
If you’re considering this apartment, DO NOT LIVE HERE. I went out of my way to write this long post because I don’t want anybody else to go through what we did.

If I could give negative stars I would!!! We were working with Arnel Management for their South Pointe property in Costa Mesa and were told that we would not get approved on our own without a co-​signer. So we moved on. Saw an ad on craigslist for Homestead stating they take people with no credit/​bad credit. So gave them a call, spoke with Danielle, explained the situation and she told me she would call me back to see if they could make an exception. Got a call back and was told that they would find a way to get us approved. Made the trip out there, filled out the app, submitted $ 280 for the app fees and holding deposit. 3 days later got a call and was told we wouldn’t get approved without a co-​signer. WTF!!! we knew that already. why would we have wasted $ 80 to find that out. So I have been trying to get my app fee back since 11/​15, finally spoke with someone right now (¹²⁄₆) and was told that it is non-​refundable — no exceptions. WTF really? so you post up false advertisement, take peoples money, don’t get back to them, and then say sorry, no exceptions. Well Arnel and Homestead, the BBB is getting a report too!
Horrible management the minute you sign across the dotted line and give up your money.
Oh and I have been waiting 2 weeks for my $ 200 holding deposit.

I’ve had multiple friends who have been treated in a manner that is dissatisfactory and/​or predatory by Arnel. They are well known for appearing to consistently rip latino tenants out of their security deposits. If they stiff you TAKE THEM to small claims court. You’re likely to end up before a judge that will cut them off and grant you a judgement with damages.
1. Keep all communication records in writing.
2. Insist on a walk through of your apartment before and after
3. Videotape and photograph the units before and after
4. Write a demand letter, indicating what needs to occur to make you whole. Do not threaten to sue unless you actually plan to carry it out.
PS. One of the heads of Arnel is Steve Mensinger; a friend of jailed Sheriff Carona and now a Costa Mesa Councilmember who is considered a right wing extremist bully. He once appeared to threaten a airline employee by waiving around his sheriff badge.

I would give ZERO rating if could .
As a pregnant woman with a 4-​year old boy, we lived in Heritage Point for shortly 6-​month. 2-​week before lease expire, we made an appoint with on-​site management office to check out if any major maintainance required, two maintainance guys came and told us only general cleaning needed. However a few days after we moved out, they sent us charges on refinishing kitchen top, refinish vanity top and refinish tub and shower! besides couple coats of paints of the entire apt, carpet cleaning etc. And all these were done WITHOUT notification of the tenant. I am wondering how big the damage could be on the tub and shower by a 4-​year old and a pregnant woman that requires such major refinishing! Let alone we were very careful living there. I guess if could they might as well remodel the whole apt like 5-​star hotel ! Very shameless Arnel management! I sent written disputes through emails and mails to both on-​site managment office and their headquarter, after 1-​month waiting, the only feedback I got from them is a Collection Letter! Very Greedy.

Please join the Facebook page «Misadventures with Arnel Management Company» to share your unfortunate events and take action.
I have read sooo many stories about the horrific experiences witnessed by many, we need to unite and take action. This is not what we signed up for and wanted to spend out hard earn money on! The ball is in your court now for us to be one voice!

*IF I COULD GIVE ZERO STARS I WOULD, BUT THE SITE WON’T ALLOW IT*
I registered with Unilocal for the sole purpose of writing a review about the ongoing dissatisfaction with the quality of life provided to us by the Casa Madrid Apartments, which is managed by Arnel Property Management.
While the apartment management has always been receptive to our complaints about the apartment complex’s shoddy plumbing (our apartment has flooded four times!!), nothing has been done to fix the root cause of the issues — they just send someone to our unit to clean up the mess. I would prefer the mess not to occur in the first place! And the fact remains that the environment in our apartment is substandard, specifically with regard to the deficient parking and security.
In the six months we have resided at the property, our carport storage facility has been broken into, and my vehicle has been struck by another resident while it was parked on the premises ($ 2,500 worth of damage). This was not captured on the facility’s «24-​hour video surveillance», and the perpetrator neglected to leave a note or any insurance information, so I was financially responsible for the incident. Also, the security gate nearest to our apartment was broken for two months before being fixed properly my management. During the time the gate was broken, any intruder was able to enter our complex without a key.
We have also had severe issues with finding a place to park. If I get home first and park in an ‘open’ spot, then I am confined at home all night as to not lose the parking spot (and that is provided I was able to find any ‘open’ parking to begin with). When one of us is forced to park off-​site, we have to walk up to six blocks to get home, no matter what time of night. As a matter of fact, the later in the evening it gets, the worse the parking situation gets. We addressed circumstances of the parking before signing the lease, and we were assured by the leasing agent that «there are plenty of open spots and there have been no issues.» After living here for six months, it is clear that this was a blatant misrepresentation of conditions.
When we presented our dissatisfaction to management, we were basically told that we signed a lease and that was that. Where was the friendly understanding that the staff feigned when they were still lobbying for our business? Once we signed the lease, they couldn’t give a crap about us.
Please feel free to contact me for further information if you are contemplating leasing an apartment at Casa Madrid or any other of Arnel’s properties.