Hi There, 

I am sad to hear of your experience and feelings on Calais Midtown. We do not have freight elevators as our building elevators are large enough to carry furniture in and out of the elevators. If you would like to speak about your security and office staff concerns in more depth, please email me directly at dsharp@venterraliving.com or you can reach me at 713-520-8300. 

I look forward to hearing from you soon and resolving any and all of your concerns! 
Regards, 
Dyllon Sharp - Community Manager 
dsharp@venterraliving.com 
713-520-8300  

Moving in was hard, no freight elevator. Security is a concern and the building is run down and old. Management does not seem to care about the up keep of the property. Quite comfortable but just really old and disregarded.

Houston-Galveston-Brazoria-TX-CMSA

This was the absolute worst rental experience of my life.  Here s as simple of a list as I can make to even slightly cover all of the issues we had with this property:

1. It all started out with being lured into the lease under false pretenses.  We were told that we were getting a $393/month concession on the market rate for our apartment.  As such&#44; I asked the leasing agent if it would skyrocket the next year to make up for the concession.  We were told no.  The next year&#44; our renewal notice showed an increase of over $200/month.

2. We paid $305 in nonrefundable application and administration fees&#44; $600 in non-refundable pet fees&#44; $240 in pet rent (over 12 months)&#44; and $140 for a pet carpet treatment after everything&#44; which is apparently just what they legally have to do.  But&#44; I ask&#44; WHAT DID OUR $840 IN NON-REFUNDABLE PET RENT AND FEES GO TOWARDS IF NOT FORSEEABLE EXPENSES AS THE RESULT OF PETS LIVING ON THE PREMISES?  Additionally&#44; we were charged for a two bedroom pet carpet cleaning despite our apartment only being a one-bedroom (which is clearly stated in our lease).  Again&#44; this is why we asked if rates would skyrocket and had we not been lied to&#44; we would not have leased from here given the huge amount we lost in fees for a single year.

3. Our move in was a disaster.  They told us our move-in date when we gave them our application and application fee.  Then when we checked less than a month before our move-in date&#44; they said they had made a mistake and we could not move in until 5 days after our previously established move-in date.  They didn t bother to call us and we wouldn t have known if we hadn t called ourselves.  They claimed that they had no phone numbers for us despite that we had filled out multiple forms and applications with 6 different contact phone numbers including 2 cell phone&#44; 2 home phone&#44; and 2 business phone numbers.  This isn t uncommon at this complex as other residents I spoke to had the exact same issue.  When we finally did move in the apartment was a completely disgusting and definitely unsanitary.  There was food crumps and hair all over the floors and baseboards&#44; old food smeared on the kitchen walls&#44; pubic hair in the shower&#44; tub&#44; and bathroom floor in addition to mildew in/on the shower and grout.  It took me 4 hours on my hands and knees with straight bleach to clean the shower and tile alone.  The baseboards throughout the apartment were covered in a thick black dust as were the ceiling fans.  The shower head was broken.  Whoever cleaned the oven left a residue that caused a black smoke to fill the apartment the first time we used it.  All in all&#44; when we moved out that apartment was in far better condition than when we moved in.

4. Safety at this complex is of no concern to management or the leasing agents.  The side doors to the parking garage are constantly broken as are the complex s gates and elevator.  The car gates were broken sometimes for weeks at a time&#44; totaling nearly 2 months of the 12 months we lived there.  In the time we lived here&#44; the elevator was broken for about 1.5 months.  At one point&#44; it was broken for nearly a month by itself.  After we moved out we complained about this and management said they d hired a company to take residents  bags and such up the 6 floors of stairs (the apartment complex has a total of 6 floors&#44; the bottom 2 of which are parking garages).  I believe this supposed service to be a lie&#44; as we were never notified of it.  The car gates and side doors being broken allow homeless people to wander the halls and car garage&#44; making theft and crime very easy to commit on the premises.

5. Leasing agents are rude and do not care about customer service.  50&#37; of the time when we d go to the front office&#44; no one was there.  The remaining time&#44; we were treated rudely.  One time&#44; I stood in front of a leasing agent for 5 minutes as she didn t want to interrupt her personal call to do her job.

6. If our move in was a disaster&#44; our move out was a catastrophe.  The elevator broke yet again and we lost an entire day of moving&#44; which was the day before our lease ended.  The manager&#44; who the leasing agents refused to let me speak to&#44; refused to give us an extra day to move.  It was not repaired until the end of the day&#44; long after moving services are available.  The same day&#44; someone else was attempting to move into a different building than ours (ours was building 1 with only one elevator while other buildings have 2 elevators.)  He had hired 2 moversf or $100 per hour and both elevators in his building were broken&#44; preventing the movers from doing their job.  The front office refused to reimburse him for the hundreds he spent on the movers and he also lost a whole day of moving.

7. The manager has absolutely no concern for the residents and no ethics.  Anytime we brought an issue to her attention&#44; she blamed it on the residents or being unable to get a repair company out.  Additionally&#44; when we wrote a letter to Internacional Reality&#44; i.e. corporate&#44; she lied and told them we had been given an extra day to move out.  She also said she had tried to give us a better rate so that we wouldn t move&#44; which was also a lie.

8. Our water was turned off&#44; which is ILLEGAL&#44; on two occasions without notice.  The reason it is illegal is because if your water is turned off&#44; a gas can build up in the pipes and you have to clear that gas by running the water for a specific period of time because if not&#44; the built up gasses can cause illness.

9. Maintenance people came into our apartment at least twice with no one being there and without leaving any notice.  The only reason we know this happened is because repairs were made to our apartment while we were not there; so obviously&#44; we knew someone had been in the apartment.  This is a violation of our lease agreement&#44; which clearly states that maintenance people can only enter if a resident is present OR a maintenance worker leaves behind a note stating that they were in the apartment and what they did while there.

10. People s packages were stolen a few times while we lived here.  This is because the leasing agents used to let people go into the mailroom&#44; which is supposed to be locked and only accessed by the leasing agents.  We had to complain 4 times in order to get the leasing agents to stop doing this&#44; including a complaint to the manager.  It wasn t until we said something to Chard&#44; the only male leasing agent and only competent personnel at this complex&#44; that anything changed.

11. After explaining to the corporate office of our experience after we moved out&#44; we were accused of making things up (in a politically correct way of course) because they hadn t heard from us during the time we lived there.  I don t know why we should have been expected to do this; we spoke to the leasing agents and at least once with the manager at length when we had issues&#44; though I seriously doubt&#44; given their incompetence&#44; that they would keep a record detailing complaints.

12.     Residents leave their dog&#39;s poop and pee in the hallways&#44; AND the trash chutes are usually broken and&#44; thus open.  As such&#44; during the hot months&#44; the halls usually smell like garbage.  The management knows about all of this.  In the 12 months we lived there&#44; our trash chute remained broken and management would take at the very least 1 week to clean up animal poop and pee.

13. We had to call the front office 4 times over the course of 3 weeks to finally get them to fix our AC&#44; which never completely broke&#44; but our apartment would be in the mid-80s during this time.  We finally had to get nasty with them because their solution was to add Freon&#44; which would fix the issue for a few days.  They finally replaced the unit&#44; but maintenance was not quick or done correctly when they came.

And really&#44; this isn t everything.  It s been 6 months since we moved and my memory of the events isn t complete.  I cannot stress how much of a mistake it would be to move here.  I would strongly suggest looking elsewhere and don t let their prices fool you.  You ll pay around 1&#44;000 in fees (if you have pets) and they WILL jack up your rent the next year after providing you with a terrible living experience.


I would 100&#37; NOT MOVING to CALAIS. All of the previous reviews are pretty true other than written by calais manager. Several of my neighbors have been moving out or are planning to move out for the same list of reasons. I&#39;m wondering why if everyone seems to have the same problems&#44; why doesn&#39;t management address those concerns before the residents decide to move out.

Pros: great location and awesome maintenance staff. They&#39;re all so friendly and helpful.Those are about all of the pros. 

I understand all apt have problems&#44; but for what this place charges&#44; you shouldn&#39;t have to deal with these every day problems.

Cons: read the previous reviews&#44; they are all 100&#37; correct. Office staff cares about one thing-securing new rentals. 

Once they have you locked in for a year&#44; they never care. They are rude and have lot of attitude if we ask about any package or help. The pet waste is pretty gross too. There are security cameras at every entrance&#44; how much would it cost to put one in the elevators to catch the idiots who aren&#39;t cleaning up their dogs accidents&#39;. It&#39;s just a pain to live here. The leaks in sanitary pipe all in garage&#44; they don not bother. Trash everywhere they do not bother. There are security cameras at every entrance&#44; how much would it cost to put one in the elevators to catch the idiots who aren&#39;t cleaning up their dogs accidents&#39;. These kinds of things are constantly going on around here.

Forget help from office staff ( not the maintainance)

If you are bothered about location there are many good apartments&#44; (wish we did some research rather just moving in). So go do some research and never move here.

Still if u move-in falling to the lovely stories of staff about &#34;no one writes positives reviews and crap&#34;. Get ready to face the following

1) Pet waste
2) Trash in all corners and stairs
3) leaks in garage from pipes ( look at the pipe fixing in pict they wrap plastic around it)
4) Arrogant&#44; Lazy and attitude prone staff
5) 20-25&#37; rent increase
6) 2-3 days of hell atmoshpere with sorroundings and arguments.

So just be away from here.



Expect the worst once you move in. Heaven from Outside Hell from inside!!

Surprise....

I started seeing some positive reviews recently about Calais and was surprised why people are lying in those reviews saying good about these Apartments.

Today went to pay my rent and came to know the secret... The staff is bribing for a 10&#37; discount off rent following month.

I got so furious when this was said with a smiley face which I rarely see when giving rent or while collecting packages.

Was also told that this discount is only to a select few and not everyone.

So now I realize why those positive reviews.

Only good thing about this is location&#44; Parking and rent. 

Do not expect smiles&#44; courtesy or help from these if you are fine with these rent here.


Goodluck.

RUN AWAY!!!!!    I live in the first dump&#44; I mean building&#44; and can not wait for my lease to be up. The entire floor reeks of rotting garbage!!!  For the last 3 weeks the trash chute has been full and stinking up the place. In addition to the smell&#44;  flies and gnats are all over the place. When I asked about the problem&#44; I was told that the compactor was broken and that only one place in the world made the part needed&#44; and they were hoping to get it in one day....great!  I&#39;ve been keeping track of issues for the last 3 weeks. Most&#44; if not all go back months&#44; but in the name of fairness&#44; I will start from May 15th:

Garbage chute full...makes the whole hall smell like a dump and attracting flies. 
Garage bottom level entrance gate broken....anyone can and has gotten in
       Maybe the broken gate explains all of the cars getting broken in to. 
Exterior doors don&#39;t close...what good is a security keypad if the don&#39;t don&#39;t close all the way?
       Doors located across from Maple Leaf Pub
       Last week I found a bum asleep in the stairwell at 1 am....can&#39;t be safe for residents
Garage level two lights....over 75&#37; of the lights are out. You can not see between cars or across the garage. 
        Very unsafe if checking mail at night&#44; or if you are a female resident. 

REMEMBER....ALL of these issues have been ongoing since May 15th. It&#39;s pretty obvious that management knows about these issues (after all&#44; this is the same building as the leasing office) and just does not care about them&#44; or the residents. I will keep updating on these problems till they are fixed. I encourage everyone to post their problems and keep harassing management till they do their job!


RENT AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!

I thought I might share some photos of the Calais.  

Photos

Thankfully&#44; I&#39;ve moved on after many&#44; many&#44; many&#44; many dealings with the local office manager Alexis&#44; the regional manager Felicia&#44; and the Calais owner Irma.  The Calais is owned by Internacional Realty.  Unless you look them up in San Antonio&#44; they don&#39;t show up in the Better Business Bureau.  

However&#44; when you do look in the proper place&#44; it shows their rating...AN F!!!  I can personally attest that this rating is completely justified.  That said&#44; who looks at the BBB ratings for apartments?  I should have&#44; but even if I did I wouldn&#39;t have been looking in the right place.  

Trust all of these reviews&#44; and I have filed a complaint with the Houston BBB in hopes of helping others to not be in the same position I was with little recourse.  This way&#44; at least if someone does look at the Houston BBB&#44; the Calais will show up too as they deserve to be there!

Don&#39;t get me wrong&#44; they&#39;re listed as a B-&#44; but that&#39;s due to having no information on them and the BBB even states that...we&#39;ll see what the rating is after this!

Check Out The BBB Rating!!

DO NOT LIVE HERE!!!

My fiancÃ© and I were residents there for two years and the first year was really great. We enjoyed it so much that we signed a second lease. This is where everything went wrong! Up until a couple of months before we moved out we had only had minor issues such as having our microwave replaced and our washing machine leaking water, simple things like this compared to what we experienced next...

Upon returning from being out of town for Thanksgiving we came home to find that our refrigerator was broken and covered in mold. Someone came to fix the refrigerator and we were informed it was working. I spent so much money on buying new food to replace everything that was thrown out, on top of the food that had gotten spoiled, only to find out the next day that the fridge had broken again. I was forced to throw all of this food out and put in a SECOND work order. We were told it was fixed again... NOPE! It was ridiculously hot again. In case the fridge broke for a third time I decided to buy all fresh food. The refrigerator broke for a THIRD time, this time everything froze and I had to throw out all of the fresh food. I had the maintenance man come out that night as this issue needed to be resolved ASAP. He asked if we wanted the entire refrigerator replaced which we happily agreed to even though we were told it would be smaller than the one we currently had. We both came home a couple days later to find the work order stating that he replaced a piece in the refrigerator rather than the entire fridge. The refrigerator then broke AGAIN for the FOURTH time. We spoke to some of the leasing agents that night, as we were obviously very upset. The maintenance worker had apparently told them we didn&apos;t want a new fridge at all. WE WERE LIVID. We FINALLY got a new fridge after more than TWO WEEKS!!!!

Throughout this entire ordeal I had asked for a manager to contact me. I NEVER heard from the so-called manager Shelly. I should have known I&apos;d never hear from that woman as I&apos;ve walked into the leasing office before, as she was talking bad about a resident needing his broken washing machine fixed. I never got a single call, follow-up or anything from this manager. This was so absurd that I knew I did not to renew my lease for a third year if a manager wasn&apos;t going to take the time and follow-up.

We thought moving out would be the end of the problems but they will find any excuse not to give you your deposit back!

We spent the last two weeks cleaning to ensure the place was spotless and we got our deposit back. While moving things out we realized that during the entire time we lived in Calais for two years the dryer vent was never connectd to the dryer. Not only was this a fire hazard this explained why we had so much lent on the walls. We waited over the next 30 days for a letter, call, anything from Calais about our deposit, as it is required by law in Texas they send this to you. We never heard from them. My fiancÃ© had to stop by the office to speak to someone about it only to be told that we didn&apos;t get our deposit back because it paid for part of our water bill and replacing the carpet. The carpet was installed so poorly that it started coming apart where it met the wood not long after we moved in. Even the leasing agent Gizella stated it was from normal wear and tear and that it was covered in our lease but because they had to replace the carpet we were forced to pay for it. 

Bottom line, DON&apos;T LIVE HERE IT&apos;S A WASTE OF MONEY AND MANAGEMENT IS THE WORST!

The gates inbound and outbound was broke and it took my car to be broken into for them to fix it I no longer felt safe in my place of living (the apartment accountability for the situation) I will not recommend this apartment

Review History for Verified Resident 923371

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