Pines

I have lived here for four years. I actually really liked it at first, but management has gotten worse and worse over the years. In addition to towing my friends who were legally parked, they wouldn’t tow the people who parked in the spots I paid for. The walls are paper thin, and I often heard fighting in almost every apartment. The management is sending people to inspect rooms all the time. And for a while I thought they were just checking us, but it seems as though all of my neighbors get the same treatment. They are constantly performing maintenance on the apartments and shutting off water constantly.
In addition management had called the cops on my apartment specifically multiple times, when no one was even home. They kept knocking on my door, and I only know because I came up behind them, asked them why they were in front of my door, and told them the noise had to have come from my neighbors because I was at work all day.
These used to be acceptable when there was a much lower rent, but as of right now I really cannot recommend it.

I moved into the Pines in 2011 and just moved out this past July of 2015. For the size of the 2 bed/​2 bath apartment it was an amazing value at the time of move in. I quickly learned you get what you pay for. That being said, the rent steadily increased to the maximum allowed each year I renewed. Additionally the office management changes constantly. Every couple of months there are new faces in the office. The only constant is the maintenance staff. They are good, however, can only be as good as management lets them. My upstairs neighbors flooded one of my bathrooms three times. I complained about the smell of mold and finally after one of the maintenance workers easily poked a hole through the ceiling was it fixed. However, I had to be inconvenienced by staying at a hotel for 3 days due to the asbestos in the apartments. Next, this place is like a college frat house. Being close to Cal State Fullerton this was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was the noise level, incessant pot smell in the halls and through the vents and again management doing nothing about it. Over the years they started to rent out to many families and once they were approved and had moved in, they brought in other families to their apartment. It has become not uncommon now to have two to three families in one apartment and each family having 3 or more children. Again, brought to managements attention and they did nothing about it. Using the laundry facilities due to all the people became impossible not to mention all the washers & dryers constantly being out of order. Had to do laundry late at night to get a dryer. Be prepared to always be removing other people’s laundry from the dryers. Also, the water is constantly being shut off for repairs to the laundry room or water lines in general. The walls are so thin you can hear everyone next to you and over you. I had about 6 college students living over me in a two bedroom apartment and it sounded like thundering buffalo at all hours of the day and night. I had drug dealers living next door to me. Brought to managements attention and their answer to me was, if I don’t like it, call the police. Well I did, and they got busted and the police moved them out. Then I got a group of people who fought constantly. There are just so many people living in such tight quarters in this place there is just no rest to be had. The noise never stops. There are so many children in and around the pool and many of them don’t even live there. It is the neighborhood pool. They issued wrist bands that were supposed to be worn to have only residents be able to use the pool, but it was never enforced. They have a security company that is never there and my cars were broken into, in the gated parking lot several times. Homeless people are constantly in the parking areas going through trash and cars. This last lease that I was offered was raising my rent $ 150 a month and that was the final straw for me. My advice, GO ANYWHERE ELSE. The Pines will give you nothing but aggrevation.

Terrible! They will raise the rent at every opportunity to the maximum percent they are allowed. If you are in 12 month lease they will raise the parking fee instead of the rent, then when your lease is up they raise the rent. Also, the water is turned off for maintenance frequently, the walls are VERY thin, management and corporate office does not return calls, ZERO closet space, hallways stink of everyone elses food, and there are people digging through the trash daily. No value here, stay away.

Terrible, overpriced, poor customer service, to many maintaince checks, turns the water off like one a month. We started rent for 1 bedroom at $ 900 and have been here for 3yrs and now it’s $ 1300. To rent a extra parking spot went from $ 15 to $ 40 haha seriously this isn’t irvine. This place is ghetto compared to irvine. I have seen many better apartments for cheaper. Once our contract is over we are moving out. STAY AWAY, UNLESS YOU WANT TO THROW AWAY MONEY, HATE PRIVACY

Management in this place is horrible and their corporate is no better. I wouldn’t recommend this place to my worst enemy. Parking for your visitors is a pain at night, if you are lucky to find a place it is on the street. Considering that it is not in the best part of town, I was surprised actually that I never saw, or heard of, a car getting broken into. The pool was always filled with a TON of people. They tried to make you wear bracelets into the pool to regulate the number of people, but never enforced it. They have way more clothes washers than dryers, so trying to dry your clothes in a high wash time was next to impossible. The water was turned off what seemed like every few days for maintenance that I don’t think ever really improved anything. AND I have never in my entire life had management need to come into my apartment so many times. I have lived in a couple different apartments and I’ve maybe had them do an inspection once a year, if at all. At the Pines, be prepared for them to come into your apartment every 2 – 3 months. Not that I have anything to hide, but I also don’t trust them, so I wanted to be home every time they were going to enter my apartment. When walking around the complex you can see that they have tenant that have 10 people to an apartment, and I wonder how they do not notice this on their many many inspections. Lastly, one night when I was walking back from changing my laundry I had a young man follow me back to my apartment. Scary!
Only plus is the maintenance. If you needed something fixed, it was fixed and the maintenance guys were always really nice and respectful.
Again, I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone.