The Heltsley

Great place to live before, now they have increased the rent, if you can afford it, the conditions are pretty good overall.

I would not recommend living here under any circumstances. Honestly, I would rather be on the streets than deal with this place again. Let’s start with the basics. The landscaping is awful — there is dog poop everywhere, and the dog run is only cleaned when they’re trying to impress potential tenants. Dogs bark at all hours of the day and night. And the “no smoking” policy? Completely ignored. People smoke cigarettes and weed nonstop, so don’t expect clean air anywhere near your unit. The mail room gets broken into regularly, and management’s excuse is always that the cameras “don’t work.” They’ve supposedly installed new ones, but the lockers are still unreliable, so your packages are basically up for grabs. There are only two laundry rooms, and the washers were out of service for months. The stairs are in terrible condition and feel unsafe to even walk on. Now for the bigger issues — this place is straight-up neglected. The pool is never cleaned. It constantly looks disgusting (just like in the photo I posted), and at one point there was literally a dead rat floating in it over an entire weekend. They removed the rat but didn’t drain or properly clean the pool afterward. That tells you everything you need to know about their standards. The elevators break down like clockwork every few months and then stay out of service forever. When you ask for updates, you just get the same empty “someone is coming to fix it” response with zero follow-through. Maintenance is basically nonexistent. I lived there for two years, and things were either ignored or handled in the laziest way possible. At one point, I reported mold growing in the room right next to my bed — instead of properly fixing it, they literally just painted over it. That is not only careless, it’s unsafe. Management is easily the worst part. Completely unprofessional and completely unhelpful. No one ever has an answer for anything. You just get passed around from person to person, or told “that’s not my department.” There is zero accountability. They don’t answer calls, everything goes straight to voicemail, and the leasing office is rarely open during the hours they claim. The biggest issue for me was how they handled rent and move-out. We were told we qualified for low-income housing, and for months they kept stringing us along saying it would be reflected in our rent. After about 7 months of waiting and being reassured multiple times, they suddenly backtracked and said we never qualified and that their own employee was wrong. That’s not just unprofessional — that’s straight-up misleading. When I moved out, I left the apartment very clean and had paid over $1,000 in deposit. I’m not getting any of it back. On top of that, they’re trying to charge me MORE because of a mistake they admitted was on their end with prorated rent. Even after acknowledging it was their error, they still expect me to pay. Make that make sense. And safety? Don’t count on it. People can get into the building through the back gate, and I’ve personally seen strangers going through the trash areas — even on holidays. It’s honestly concerning how easy it is for non-residents to get in. Overall, this place is dirty, poorly managed, unsafe, and completely unprofessional. They will take your money, ignore your concerns, and then try to charge you even more on the way out. Save yourself the stress, time, and money — live literally anywhere else. Decaying squirrel for 2 months, dead rat dirty pool, misleading office hours

Honestly I’m unsure of everyone’s problems with this complex. It’s not the BEST- but it’s also not even bad? Lots of room, parking, nice people. No bugs. No rodents besides squirrels outside. Pretty solid place!

I’m currently living here and honestly just looking forward to moving out. Disorganized and inconsistent, and communication is a constant problem.

The property has been going downhill in the last couple of years. The property changed ownership earlier this year and had a name change from SoFi Redwood Park to The Heltsley. So far my experiences with the new maintenance guys have been good. Unfortunately some loud neighbors moved in and they like to blast music at random times during day or night (like 1:30am on a Thursday). In post-COVID times people are using the pool more... and sometimes hold loud gatherings especially on weekends during the summer, with music echoing several buildings away. If you want a quiet apartment, definitely stay away from the pool. Usually they wrap up their gatherings by midnight at least but it is VERY loud with obviously drunken people scream-talking like they're in a club. Turning left onto Whipple from the parking lot is even more of a problem, especially with entitled people parking illegally along the red curb, obstructing views of oncoming traffic. The WASH washers and dryers in the laundry rooms often have issues and eat your money. Crappy neighbors know which machines are issues and instead of reporting machines to the company for repair (free) they will use up ALL working washers and dryers except for the broken one IN THEIR BUILDING AND THE NEXT BUILDING, leaving you to unknowingly use the broken one and lose money. There are two washers per building of 27-30 apartments... and inconsiderate people like to use all the machines of their building and the next building at the same time, preventing you from doing laundry for hours. There are some lazy neighbors that bring their dogs downstairs to urinate in the walkway right between buildings 1230 and 1304 near the laundry rooms. There's no sprinkler system here so the dog urine just accumulates, becomes stale and REEKS.