The Flats on University, fairfax-va

We applied for my daughter’s rental for immediate move in as she was having last minute issues and needed something immediately. We confirmed with flats at least FOUR times if July 15th move in is available, and each time they said yes. Her documents were signed, we as her guarantors signed it. Less than a week left into her current situation, they tell her July is not available and a manager will reach out to her to discuss her options. No manager called her and whenever we gave the office a call, no one responds and the AI is the most useless thing for this office. Whenever I finally reach the office, they sigh at your questions, roll their eyes and give attitude instead of giving good answers or atleast be nice when they’re the ones in the wrong. When my daughter spoke to them the manager told her “if you keep calling even if we have rooms available for you we will not give it to you”. There was no accountability taken by the management or the building whatsoever. If you guys are still showing early move ins, telling your tenants who by the way are paying YOU to basically to get lost and rolling eyes. Terrible management and needs to be dealt with. I understand everyone is going through changes, and as someone who works in customer service/retail departments, if you are wrong atleast find a way to fix it. don’t give your own customers attitude. Everyone in that building has bad attitude and never helps. Along with the lies and misleading information, they also lie about their waivers and fees.

This is my second review with this property. I have been s staying at this place for almost a year and now we have another management and it has been bad in this place. If you see my first review, it has all been positive reviews because the management was really really good and they were up to mark no complaints at all, but with the new management, you cannot reach the front desk. You cannot even put up a maintenance request, and now our power has been out probably for more than six hours and nothing has been resolved yet. There there is no email. There is no phone number that you can reach out to them and someone reached out to me from Flats and her name was Faith Dixon and she has been providing me one line answers, no customer service at all. I would not suggest people to move in with this new management and I am currently looking for new lease outside of The Flats.

If I could give 0 stars I would but then you can't read this review. Let me say this simple and clear. Whatever you do DO NOT move yourself, your kid, your family into this apartment ESPECIALLY right now with this new management. I have never felt so uncomfortable, so angry and disappointed at a place like this, even GMU dorms were better. They recently just switched to an AI chat bot for calls and answering texts/emails and it was been horrific. You can never get to a person and oh you would think that management is sooooo busy that you can't reach them, absolutely not, they are just sitting in comfortable chairs, listening to music, laughing, when I am here stressed about why in the world my rent went up by almost 100 dollars when I am literally about to move out in 30 days. Next, my boyfriend was helping this caregiver bring down groceries and bag down the stairs from the 4th floor, and she had mentioned to him how the man she is taking care of was recently forced to move into a new unit, new building because he complained about the elevator not working for a whole year, instead of fixing the damn elevator, they decided to tell him to move. He is disabled, in a wheelchair and cannot do this all by himself. Another thing, they are understaffed, they do not have a maintenance team, they do not have more than 2 managers, not more than 2 student workers, so if you are wondering why your maintenance request never came, this is why. When our AC broke down, they had to call a team from JMU down to fix this. We live on the third floor of the A building, there was a very bad trash problem, people were throwing raw chicken, dog poop in the trash next to the elevator and it wasn't getting cleaned. so after 3 weeks it finally gets dumped out but oh guess what, management just takes the entire trash can with them, no other floor had their taken away, this isn't a big issue but like why did you stop your existing contract with your old cleaning company so now your residents have to suffer. honestly fire everyone, redo this, I am so glad to be moving out. Y'all PLEASE TAKE MY WORDS SERIOUSLY. I was blindsided by the pool and amenities too at first BUT DO NOTTTTTTT RENT HERE, there's so many other cheaper and better spots I PROMISE YOU. PARENTS DO NOTTTTT RENT YOUR KIDS HERE THEY WILL SUCK YOUR MONEY AND YOUR CHILDS HEALTH. PLS DONT RENT PLS DONT. I know school is right around the corner, but this is not worth it.

New management is actually terrible. They’ve removed so many things and even refused to take out the trash for weeks after complaining and complaining about it piling up. (At one point even three stories high) as you can see in the trash shoot picture it literally reaches the third floor. A week after they fixed that our A.C Went out in a Friday but because they decided to change the hours to not work weekends we were forced to live in an apartment above 80° causing it to be impossible to sleep. We even called the emergency maintenance team many many many times and never ever got a call back or answer from a real person. Making it impossible to reach the emergency maintenance team, this genuinely makes me afraid to live here and we are currently leaving lease after this month. Find other places nearby to rent this one is horrible

I've lived here for about a month now and so far I'm liking it. My moving experience was a little bit hectic but that was partially also because of my family dynamics since they were helping me move. It still would have been easier if The Flats had a better system for a move-in though. Molly and James did the best they could and I really appreciated their patience with me and my family and all of our questions and messing up some of the directions that were given to us... They were all so very helpful on the phone with all of my questions before I applied and even after my application got accepted. The staff is very friendly and respectful every time I go to the leasing office to pick up a package, and the property itself is pretty well maintained. I don't really have any complaints so far. I'm looking forward to using the outdoor facilities & the pool when it gets warmer and I signed up to renew my lease and got a little perk in the form of a $50 gift card for signing up the day the new renewal timeframe was announced. 🙂 My unit itself is also pretty nice (there weren't really any huge issues in the physical space) and I like my roommates! So overall, I think that it's a nice place to stay if you can afford it and they also have deals going on at different times of the year, & the renrlt includes access to all the facilities (like the gym, pool, sauna, study rooms, free printing, etc). My only constructive feedback would be to make mov in day easier for people by creating more of a structured, step by step system where staff can help escort new residents into their units from the time they arrive. I'm curios to see how the rest of my time here goes.... Oh, & I like that Safeway & Old Town Fairfax are both within walking distance (essentially neighboring)! It is super convenient!