Bishops View Apartments

Well lo’ and behold, they never took my name off of the water utility account. This is after speaking with someone in the Bishops View office two weeks ago and having them tell me they would do so. I ended up having to pay a water bill for an apartment I haven’t lived in since September.

This place is very cheaply built with very thin walls. You can hear your next door neighbor sneezing (not exaggerating). It’s under new management & they are trying but…
The maintenance people are always keeping it clean especially during snow storms but it’s just a crappy constructed place. Such a shame because it’s a great layout with a lot of closet space. However, the rent is too high for such cheap «remodels».

My boyfriend lived here for 2 years before I moved in. I knew he wasn’t completely happy with the place, but since I was new to New Jersey (I moved from Maryland to live with him) I knew it was a safe area and good location (shops, close to philly, and ofcourse in Cherry hill).
We decided to move into a «newly» renovated one bedroom. The only difference was hardwood where there used to be tile, stainless steal appliances, updated looking counter top, and nicer wider blinds.
However, the front door, all the windows, and the balcony door are not completely sealed so we constantly have a draft. The sliding screen door is not sealed and breaks off the track everyone we open it. Our oven omits white dust to the drawer underneath it onto all our our baking sheets and fire comes out.
The backboard of our counter top completely came off one day. The sealant that holds it into the counter top chips off little by little everyday.
Our tile in our bathrooms sealant constantly peels or flakes off little by little everyday. The tiles are starting to crack as well. The shower head and faucet are lose when we moved in.
The carbon monoxide detector is hanging by wires from our ceiling because one day it just fell off and continued to go off at 1am. No one ever came. Two days later a maintenance man came to fix it (after we had to take batteries out to get it to stop going off) and he didn’t bring any tools so he had to use ours and took our tools with him. He then called to say he would return them and never did. Also the next day the carbon monoxide detector fell and hung from the wires again like it had been before the maintenance man ever came.
In the middle of the summer, our AC broke, the two maintenance men told us it was because no one ever changed our filters like they were supposed to. They gave us some kind of AC machine that only worked in one room with a tube going out the window and had to be plugged in. It was super loud and only worked in one room like I said earlier. This lasted for at least two weeks. We continued to bother the maintenance men and the women in the office. They finally had to reinstall a whole new AC unit. We were also apologized to by the office women because they claimed they were told by the maintenance men that it had already been fixed. Then they refused to take money off of our rent for one month since we had no AC. Then they never came to take their huge AC portable unit, we called over and over again before we finally decided to wheel it out into the hallway and put a note on it «not trash» so the trash men would not take it.
Our rent is taken out of my boyfriends account electronically every month. Even so we get a letter slid in our door every month saying we haven’t paid our monthly rent and will be charged a fee. We have also been told in the notes that our rent is 1530 when on our lease it says 1430. One day we received a note in our mailbox saying the property management, Lincoln property management, was suing us for not paying our rent and gave us a court date. We immediately went to the office and they acted confused and said they would take care of it and we did pay our rent each month on time. Shortly after we came home to a pink notice taped to our door from the Camden Police Department saying we missed our court date and were being evicted in 5 days. We were outraged, we went to the office AGAIN and they apologized and actually took care of it this time and admitted that they forgot to submit a few months of our payments to the property management company and that’s why this was happening. On top of that they took out too much money one month from my boyfriends account and owe us 80 dollars.
Now to the outside of the building…
NO ONE picks up their dog SHIT, ITS LITERALLY everywhere! Not to mention the dog trash containers outside are usually always full and sometimes have no bags.
There is a valet trash company that comes to pick up your trash and you are given a small trash can to put your trash in each night for them to collect it. I don’t know about others, but I do not want that trash can back in my house after being outside on the dirty, wet, or snowy ground. And I use my balcony so I would not like to put it out there either. It is not allowed to be left outside at all times. The trash company is only allowed to take trash that is tied in a bag not any lose trash, which is understandable, however people put trash in my trash can outside like cigarettes, old food, old coffee cups; which also makes me not want to bring that dirty trash can back in every night. When one of the maintenance men changed all the light bulbs in the hallways he put all the old light bulbs in our trash can! Then one day our trash can disappeared (assuming someone stole it) which is almost a blessing because it was disgusting. Now I keep getting a notice saying they won’t take my trash without the trash can…

I came across Bishops View a few years ago and was immediately taken by their gorgeous facilities and their courteous professional staff. There is an outdoor swimming pool and indoor ²⁴⁄₇ gym room, optional one car garages, storage lockers on site ($ 50/​month), and trash pick-​up five nights a week. (However, you must take your own recycling down to the canisters.) Maintenance is impeccable, with contractors regularly coming in to refresh the grounds and remove the leaves and snow. The location’s proximity to Cooper River Park is a plus, and the duck pond and lush greenery on site are picturesque. The pool, open from noon to 8 PM everyday with lifeguard, was my favorite part of the experience.
The business office and gym room, both open 24 hrs a day, and the private conference room area, are distinct advantages over most other apartment complexes. I did submit several requests to update the mac which only provides an e-​mail portal with a browser but no proper print capability or word processing. Only the one PC machine still provides these necessary tools. I had to do any troubleshooting with the internet and printer myself. Other residents could not be counted on to notify the office, and the office could not be counted on to fix anything technical, like the printer being out of paper, or offline.
Instead of signing a full lease, we were sold on their «flexible» 11-​month term that was supposed to save us money in the long run by allowing us to go month to month during months 12 – 24. This appeared to be a great deal if it were going to do what the sales agent said it would, which was to give us flexibility to exercise a month to month option upon expiration of the lease. Yet, in practice, there were significant monthly surcharges once the original lease ended that were designed to force me into signing another whole 12 month lease which was never what I had wanted to do. Our month to month lease renewal incurred a surprising penalty (every month), which can be hundreds or even thousands more for EACH MONTH which was not disclosed when it was being offered.
If anyone sells you the same «month to month renewal» as a benefit, ask them how exactly it is going to be an option that could benefit you. Get everything in writing. The actual rent renewal process was so shockingly punitive that I question their practice of advertising month to month flexibility in their promotions at all to then counteract it so blatantly with their practice of lease renewals and undisclosed month-​2-​month fees.
If you see new resident rent specials or any other specials here, understand that these are once and done, so avoid being taken for one of these deals unless you know for sure you can get out on the exact day your lease ends. Any implied flexibility for lease terms just means you will be charged one way or another for it. Another option you may have, though it is not necessarily spelled out in the lease, is to «break» a regular lease with 60 days notice and a 30 day additional rent penalty. Sadly, it ends up being cheaper to break a lease than accept the month to month terms in many cases. The «month to month» option is not only too expensive to ever benefit the leaseholder, it’s deceptive in the advertising. It seems like an attempt to take advantage of people who become locked in after being offered a lower security deposit and introductory special lease rate initially. Being outside of a lease on a month to month basis is certainly not the benefit they made it sound to be when I was a prospective tenant.
They’ve since added a FAQ to their website which indicates that «month to month leases normally are at a higher lease amount.» The month to month renewal penalty was as disappointingly normal as it could be, because it was advertised as a perk, not as the bait and switch that it turned out to be. I saw one person’s rent more than double for month to month, and I thought, wow, is this what they must do to retain people who can’t really afford to take any option other than a full lease renewal? Why do they offer month to month anyway except to avoid having to break a renewed lease, which turns out to be cheaper anyway after only a few months?
Final notes. The large dogs owners often don’t feel the need to pick up after their poop (especially over by bldg 3). The lack of extra overnight parking availability is frustrating to renters AND discourages guests.