The Mansfield at Miracle Mile Apartments review: Poor customer service from leasing office and management

If you are in the market for a premium priced apartment community, I strongly urge you to pass on The Mansfield if quality customer service, integrity and respect are qualities from management that are important to you. If you want to pay for a luxury rental and risk being disrespected and embarrassed by management and forced to argue with their lawyers, by all means come to The Mansfield.

I have lived at The Mansfield for 7 months and have another 11 months remaining on my lease. This review is not from a disgruntled former tenant sending parting shots on their way out the door. This complaint is from a current resident who will be experiencing The Mansfield in real time for the next year.

My experience with The Mansfield leasing office (particularly the community manager) and corporate management (building supervisor) is easily the worst residential leasing experience I've encountered in my 15+ years leasing apartments. Further, my experience at The Mansfield is the most execrable customer service experience I've encountered with a paid product or service, in my entire life.

It all begins with the leasing office and community manager. Based on how the community manager treats me, I initially felt she was singling me out but after reading other negative reviews and speaking to fellow residents, I realized that the "know-it-all" attitude, disrespect, argumentative nature, and rudeness, were not reserved just for me. One October 2020 review from a current Mansfield tenant puts it succinctly, "Management is rude and condescending; the community manager at the leasing office needs an attitude check." An August 2020 Yelp review from a former tenant concludes with "If you value decent conversations and relationships with your management team, I wouldn't waste your time."

Some of the lowlights of my current tenancy at The Mansfield:

1. Contentious exchanges with community manager and her insistence that negotiating the price of a new lease was an explicit violation of Fair Housing laws. Also, instead of accommodating my request for a new parking space after my huge Cadillac Escalade ESV incurred a total of $1000 in damage, community manager insisted that parking changes were not allowed because of the potential of other residents bringing claims under Fair Housing laws. My parking space was eventually changed in January, after months of heated email communications. Community manger contends that me (a licensed attorney) vigorously arguing that her interpretation of Fair Housing laws is wrong, is offensive, belittling and demeaning to her.

2. Building supervisor reneging on his explicit 2/16/21 approval of my request to transfer apartments for medical reasons and to accommodate a noise concern (from my exercise equipment) from my neighbor. Community manger noted on 2/16/21 that he hoped that this transfer would allow everyone to turn over a new leaf and for heated communication to stop. Two days later, The Mansfield used information I provided to realize that the former resident of the unit I was transferring into, had abandoned the apartment without notice. Realizing now that the apartment would be available 2/27/21 and not months later as previously believed, building supervisor and community manager changed their minds and decided they would not let me transfer in spite of building manager's negotiated offer that I accepted. They instead hoped to rent the unit to a new resident and disregard building supervisor's deal with me.

However, community manger and building supervisor still had the community assistant manager collect all my income information to "re-qualify" for an apartment priced $1 more than my current apartment. Assistant manager even stated, I would need to show them a bank account with a balance of at least $105, 000 (for a $3, 500/month apartment that I was never late on rent with), if I could not supply my 2020 1099 tax form. I supplied all required income data on 2/19/21. On 2/23/21, community manager advised me that because of many noise complaints and my inability to follow community policies, my request was denied. She also noted that my emails to the leasing office gave rise to a hostile work environment and put the safety and well-being of the staff at risk and therefore I should keep my communication for the next 11 months of my lease to strictly maintenance requests and gym/pool reservations.

3. In December, in the midst of email communication about changing parking spaces and negotiating a transfer, I received a notification from LinkedIn that assistant manager, was viewing my profile. To this day, I can't figure out the relevance of my LinkedIn page to our discussion of lease issues.

4. The Mansfield lawyer advised me on 2/25/21 that for next 11 months the staff will only provide me the bare minimum service required to tenants under the law.

I would like The Mansfield to propose an outcome regarding my complaint and endeavor to have better customer service and tenant relations.