We left the Berkeley after living there for six years in a three-bedroom unit. Up until the end we would have given the Berkeley a largely positive review. Some of the rent increases from year to year felt completely driven by market analysis rather than any acknowledgment of our loyalty as tenants, but I suppose that’s the prerogative of a large parent company with properties all over the place. More about that in a moment.
The office staff were always pleasant to see and highly
...service-oriented. It was rare for any of them to last more than a year, but across the board, they were very nice. So, it was a huge disappointment when we moved out and received a bill for charges the Berkeley assessed against our security deposit. We had been scrupulous in our upkeep of the apartment. We rented a cleaning unit once a year to deep clean the carpets, and we stayed on top of stains in the interim. We reported maintenance issues (including water leaks from other units) to the office and helped to resolve them.
Early in our stay, the Berkeley resurfaced our kitchen counter tops. They chose an inferior product (a spray-on coating), which is highly sensitive to heat, as we discovered when we set a pot from the stove on the counter and caused it to lose its shine. If you’d like to actually use your kitchen, meaning heating things on the stove, then transferring them to the counter, you should not rent an apartment here because when you move out, the Berkeley will charge you to resurface the counter tops, presumably with the same lousy coating that will do the same thing as soon as the next person puts a hot pot on it.
After six years our assessment of the carpet in the unit was that it showed reasonable wear and tear, but the Berkeley decided that the carpet was “uncleanable” and had to be replaced, and they charged us for some bizarre, pro-rated amount toward the replacement cost. So, they acknowledged six years of wear and tear but somehow also wanted us to contribute to the replacement.
In the end, we were presented with a statement calculated to get as much money as possible out of us while staying below the threshold where it made sense to go to small claims court to defend our interests. We paid, but the entire account closing process was feckless and underhanded, and it really makes it impossible for us to recommend this place.
If this location and floor plan is right for you, go ahead – just make sure you’re saving up for the hit you’ll take when you leave.
Max of 2.