The Cape

They cut corners and don’t take care of the plumbing which causes flooding. They do minimal and the office staff is incredibly rude.

Maintenance has really taken a dive over the years that I've lived here. Very mickey moused work that essentially puts a band-aid on any problem til the management gets approval to replace it, which usually you'll never get a follow up unless you follow up with them. Arnel introduced a new resident website that let's you submit maintenance requests from there, supposedly it's supposed to allow us to pay rent online as well but after almost a year later that hasn't changed so make sure you… bring checks. Per one of the maintenance guys I spoke with, it's only effective when the management office looks at it and gives them the work orders. So, that brings me to the current management team that's been here for roughly 3-4 months now. Arnel has this system that they'll rotate management & employees to other properties of theirs, seems to be about every 6-8 months you'll see a new team in the office. This one in particular has been very difficult to deal with & very unprofessional based on their attitudes. I'm not going to go into much detail since we're still living here and still awaiting a fix for our issues. But just to put it out there, if they say "We'll talk to our maintenance guys and call you back", know that they do not. I've literally heard this over 10 times these last 3 months, and I'm the one who calls them or walks in asking what's going on and each time they look baffled and start the whole process over. I've talked to Nicole & Scott mostly, to the point where if Nicole answers my call she just forwards me to Scott.. I wouldn't need to follow up so much with them if they just kept their word and followed up with me, their client who has lived there for years and is always on time with rent... I've never once raised my voice with them in the office or on the phone, but they treat me like I'm screaming at them and just makes the entire situation worse. I've tried reaching out to the Arnel corporate office across the street and have gotten no reply there either, so now I go public in calling them out. Thanks for giving this a read, best wishes to the apartment hunters. Read More

PROS:

- Location. Surrounding area is nice, especially being in walking distance to the South Coast Plaza and Metro point. Also, it is surprisingly quiet being so close to the 405 free. I was lucky enough to have a corner unit and my neighbors were all GREAT people.

- Staff. Mostly very nice, and the maintenance team is great!

- Free service. When you resigned your lease they gave you a free premium service, my favorite being the free carpet deep cleaning.

CONS:

- They 'Nickel and dime… you'. My unit had no fridge & the washer dryer units are not embedded so you have to go to one of their four laundromats. Also everything inside the unit generally felt cheap. Cheap paint, my toilet-paper holder was literally glued on, and the wood felt old and was peeling.

- General upkeep. My stove, oven, and range looked like it was out of the 1970s. Everything -from the buildings to the units themselves - feels old. I had a running joke with my neighbors that the only improvements Arnel staff knows how to do is "paint over everything".

- Shady business dealings. California state law requires that you get 30 days *written notice of your rent increase* if under 10%, and 60 days if over 10%. Arnel property hands you a letter a month out of your lease ending that says "come talk to us about negotiating your rent!". That's not how it works. Every other place I've ever lived in requires a written number of what the rent is being increased to. I called the Orange County Fair Housing Association and they said they get tons of complaints about Arnel doing this.

- Office Staff organization. Getting maintenance requests fulfilled takes days.I was constantly told they were "understaffed" with their maintenance team. I had my AC unit completely break on me (see my point above about old equipment; this thing looked like it was around when electricity was invented) and it took me 3 times badgering the office to find a solution. I also was told when I was moving out that I would NOT have painting the walls debited from my deposit because it was time for them to be redone anyway....and that charge was indeed debited after being explicitly told otherwise by the Property Manager.


Overall, There is nothing "luxurious" about the Cape. Even with the positive points I mentioned above, there are FAR better options available for the rent you are paying, which is why I moved out. They charge the same price point as Irvine Company, but are nowhere near that quality. Read More

Attempted to rent 2 short term corporate apartments here. They were all to happy to make promises and take my deposits to hold the apartments. When I submitted the application and accompanying corporate tax returns, they came back saying insufficient income. It should be noted that the returns showed corporate income in excess of $3.5 million dollars. It should also be noted that they elected to deny my application 2 days prior to my scheduled move in. They now are holding my deposits and… will process a refund via paper check and say that this could take a week or 2. Nice! They are floating MY MONEY!!! DO NOT RENT HERE OR FROM ANY ARNEL PROPERTY!!! Read More