“Great experience, like all apartments there are the occasional issue, but the management team, especially Jay was quick to respond and help us out. He was fair minded and really went out of his way to help us even when we needed a little extra help on things. They have lots of options around town, so when we were ready to move up to a larger 2 bedroom he accommodated us.”
“House has been barely maintained. Overgrown bushes. Had to ask for months of parking in mud by both me, my roommate, and upstairs neighbors (we share a duplex) to get the driveway re-graveled. He basically gaslights us when we bring up maintenance problems that were pre-existing before move-in that have only worsened in the past year. Examples: brown stained ceiling tiles in the bathroom. Gnats. Black mold in the basement he only addressed after my roommate tried to report him. Broken washer in the basement. Blaming us for some plumbing issues that are actually only due to the house being 100 years old and barely maintained. Outdated appliances including washer/dryer and a/c units. Cracked glass in windows that he won’t replace. Painted over shower; paint has no place on a shower lol and it peels (as of course it would) due to moisture. Poor air ventilation but most windows can’t be opened because they are covered in so many layers of paint - functional windows only open up a few inches. Most windows don’t have screens anyway. Locks have obviously never been replaced between tenants - until the kitchen door lock got irreparably jammed that he had to replace the lock in its entirety. It is rare that he acknowledges let alone follows through on maintenance requests. Water is very low pressure. Heating is an old furnace decades old that is irreplaceable- once it goes out the place will simply have no heat. No plans to fix that, only to sell. Puts huge (several feet across) political signs in the yard. Doesn’t use modern payment options, have to drop off a check. Also, his son is the constable; 3rd district. It feels like that should be illegal but I guess it’s not! Is certainly fishy though! The constable’s office is located at 224 E High Street. That building is also barely maintained. The driveway is itching to give its victims (tenants) flat tires. In fact, the constable doesn’t even park in the back lot attached to the driveway; he parks in the post office’s lot across the street. Clearly, he’s aware that it’s unacceptable!”
“The apartment had recently been redone, but it seemed only halfway done. The washer was replaced, but the laundry room flooded and was filled with mold. Safety concerns went unanswered by this landlord. Lights in the parking lot were out and took several months to replace. A fellow tenant had a car part stolen and cars along the street were being broken into every other night. In the pitch black, people who did not live in the complex roamed around the apartment and stared into windows. None of these legitimate safety concerns seemed to warrant an immediate solution for Mr. Milani. The apartment itself, not to mention the above-mentioned concerns, certainly weren't worth paying $700 per month for over a year.”
“We moved into this ”house” on October 1, 2021. The place was absolutely filthy, we had to scrub the floors, walls, and baseboards before moving our things into the house. Immediately, we had issues with the furnace. Lexington Code Enforcement states that a property owner must maintain a 65° temperature in EACH living space, from October 1-May 15. Many times we woke up and the house was below 60°. Recently, (last week of January 2022) we woke up to the thermostat reading 46°. There was an impending ice storm on the way. We put in 10+ maintenance requests to PERMANENTLY fix the issue. We texted, emailed, and even sent multiple letters in the mail to our landlord, to no avail. She ignored us. She left our group chat THREE times. She was combative and apathetic and has clearly gotten away with this. Lexington Code Enforcement gave them 5 days (until February 5) to fix the issue. They disobeyed this order and we were within our legal rights to move out. We were interviewed by LEX18 for this. We have ample proof and the furnace issue is not even the only thing. We were illegally charged $100 a day for a security system we had permission to install. The lease states, “The tenant may have a security system and pay a one-time $75 fee and give the landlord access to the code.” We offered this to our landlord and maintenance multiple times and we were rejected. We obtained a lawyer who guided us through this process so as to not break any laws, otherwise, we would be lost and FREEZING inside of that trash dump on Park Avenue with the YELLOW DOOR. I do have pictures but no links to them. They’re saved onto my phone.”
“Horrible. Smooth talker, car salesman type. Liar and does not care about the state of the conditions that tenants live in. Bellefontaine is filled with bugs, drugs, and poor maintenance. Please DO NOT RENT FROM THESE SLUM LORDS.”
“Lynne's alright. She's actually a property manager for the landlord, who lives in California. Her husband was kind of creepy, but luckily we didn't have too many dealings with him. The tenants before my housemates and I left it in poor plumbing condition, but it eventually got fixed. We did have to bug Lynne for six months to get a new dishwasher since the old one was not working at all. The rent's a little much for the place, which has its own foibles (my room is NOT fire-safe, and the house is super drafty). Still, it's bearable enough since it's a 10-minute walk from campus.”
"Maintenance issues were frequent. Once a month we would not have hot water or water at all building-wide, with little to no communication on the issue. Power outages, limbs falling out of trees on the property. A tree fell over through a fence and blocked an entrance to the parking lot, and it wasn't removed for 2 weeks. Took weeks to get the internet hooked up because Jey was unresponsive to the cable company. Can't get Metronet fiber because Jey won't talk to them. Jey would enter my apartment unannounced, frequently, including once walking in on me in my underwear. I had to install security cameras to document this behavior. My toilet tank broke because it was installed improperly and the tank was rubbing against the wall, and Jey said I "used the toilet improperly" and said I would have to pay for the repair. It was not repaired for over 2 weeks. This was the only toilet in my apartment, so I had to go to a local restaurant to use the bathroom. 7 months into a 12-month lease, a pet rent fee was added to my account on the online rent payment system. My signed lease did not mention a pet rent, at all. When I brought this up, Jey said there was a "typo" in my lease. There's no such thing as a typo in a signed contract. When I refused to pay these illegal fees, he added late fees to my account and then took those late fees out of my deposit. Jey took the house across from the apartment building and listed it on AirBnB, so there were loud wild parties every weekend, even during covid. And there's no sound insolation on exterior walls, at all, so I knew every song that was being played, even though it was on the other side of a small driveway. I was an ideal tenant. Paid my rent on time. Never threw loud parties. Kept my place clean and quiet. Jey always treated me like I was the biggest bother in the whole world. Jey always looks like he's having the worst time, even when giving tours to prospective new tenants. My sincere hope is that he really is having the worst time, all the time because that's exactly what he deserves. Don't rent from Jey Marks or Urban Vigor. And don't use the rent from them on AirBnB."
“Old appliances that are prone to breaking only get band-aid treatment. The same goes for electrical or drywall. After bringing in lights (there were none in the living room) I noticed the extreme amount of drywall patches in the place, none of which were properly dealt with. Obvious signs of foundation problems and the communal washer/dryer setup was more likely broken than not. After 2 years of complaining, they sent a contractor to look at the sinkholes in the parking lot. By the time I left (mid 2020) it was about 1 ft deep and 2 parking spaces wide. Drove by the other day and noticed it still has not been fixed. I never had to deal with unannounced visits or intruding without permission. I actually saw a marked improvement in responsiveness over the last year, though they still only took half measures like replacing my central air with a single mini-split which would only cool one room. All in all, they were OK for the price and location, but don't expect much.”
“So far we are pleased with this community. They are leagues better than our previous apartment. I was surprised to read the negative comments on other Merrick Place reviews, but I also cannot defend them. In my experience, the maintenance staff are great folks. Our rent is reasonable and the property is well-maintained. I can see living here for years.”
"My landlord owns several properties on campus, and the one I rent is next door to another one of his properties (so I've seen the condition of both). Both houses are quite old, built in the 20s, and while that's not necessarily an issue in itself, they have been maintained VERY poorly by the landlord. In many parts of the house, the flooring is mismatched and uneven, and in some cases the walls are literally crumbling apart. A couple months after we moved in we noticed that the kitchen ceiling would leak after the upstairs shower was used, as well as a large (and slowly expanding) crack in the ceiling where this was happening. Landlord was notified immediately, but it took over 4 months to resolve this issue. As with any maintenance issues (there were many others), Gary would always use a band-aid, half-assed solution at first. He eventually sent a 'plumber' over (who we found out wasn't even a licensed plumber and just did it as a side gig while he worked at the Apple store, yup) who temporarily fixed the leak but after about a week we had problems yet again. The house is very poorly insulated, with doors and most windows having visible gaps in them, as well as some visible gaps in the flooring (where you can see to the outside). Needless to say this was a major hassle during the winter time, and it made our heating costs skyrocket. Gary refused to take responsibility for this or pay for any of the heat bill since it was "our job" to better insulate the house (??). There is also a ridiculous amount of space, especially in the crawlspace under the house and in the attic, for pests to live unhindered. We've seen mice, opossums, and even a bat once. Gary also eschews the responsibility of dealing with these other than haphazardly placing a few mouse traps every once in a while, even though our lease specifically states that pest issues are his responsibility. Last but certainly not least, he has several times entered the house unannounced, without waiting for someone to answer the door. On one of those occasions as well, he proceeded to enter the bathroom without knocking, which is a major no-no. He has been rude to me several times over text after I've made maintenance inquiries, and is overall just an extremely skeezy guy. The ONLY reason this house (and likely many of his other properties) hasn't had to be remodeled completely is because Gary has a constant supply of desperate college kids looking for housing on campus. He is a master at taking advantage of this demographic, who have little time or the capacity to deal with the severity of issues this house has."
The Lexington Tenant Review 