Seminole Flatts

"Parents, please do not send your kids here. My son is the first PhD student in our family, and I could not be more proud of him. Our family has been through a lot of hardships, so I say we’ve come a long way. When he got his acceptance letter from FSU, we looked for apartments in the area, and we settled on Seminole Flatts because it had the highest reviews among any apartment in the area. I learned too late that the reviews were bribed. My son deserved better than Seminole Flatts. I will list the events which led me to this conclusion, in no particular order other than the one by which they come to my mind. 1. On New Year’s Day 2021, my son flew back to Tallahassee from his holiday break to find himself locked out of his apartment. They had changed the locks on his door, promising the new keys could be picked up at the office, but the office was closed for the holidays. Many students found themselves in this same situation. The management was unsympathetic, retorting “We gave you many notifications about this.” The notifications were sent less than a week before the locks were changed, while everyone was at home and could do nothing. I don’t understand why Seminole Flatts management thinks it’s okay to stress these kids with this ill-planned decision while they are spending time with family. As if that wasn’t enough, management blamed these kids as though they had locked themselves out! The only person in the office who was sympathetic was a student employee, who said she would ask about reimbursement. Of course, management shut that down immediately, and I suspect she was reprimanded because she quit her job not soon after. 2. Sometime in the autumn of 2022, a homeless man on a bicycle roaming the Seminole Flatts parking lot followed my son to his doorstep and demanded money. The area really isn’t safe, and Seminole Flatts management doesn’t seem to care. 3. In the summer of 2022, they changed their internet provider from Xfinity to Pavlov. Since then, they would have lots of internet outages, so my son would go entire days without internet. I can’t imagine how much his studies have been set back by Seminole Flatt’s decision to save a quick buck. But it gets worse. Under Pavlov, tenants no longer had their own router but instead shared the same network – and it didn’t even have a password. My son had to get a VPN. 4. The biggest shock came when he finally moved out in the summer of 2023, and they pursued us demanding $710 for damages we didn’t cause. They dismissed our objections, and instead threatened us with debt collectors. It became clear that when they asked for his new address, it wasn’t to forward him mail. It was to know where to find him, so they could send debt collectors after him. I watched my son take on the burden of seeking legal advice to protect us, on top of his classes. It was straining his health, so I gave in and sent Seminole Flatts management the money to allow my son to sleep easy at night. I’m sure he would have fought them to the end, but I wanted him to focus on school with a clear mind. It seems they charged most who moved out this year, judging by the reviews and accounts from his friends. I don’t believe for a moment that any of these kids broke anything. I think Seminole Flatts is just short on money this year, and is taking it out on these students. This explains why they’ve bribed so many good reviews this year — to drown out the bad ones. I find it alarming that predatory landlords like these can operate with impunity on our kids – our future. Parents, please look after your kids. These people are predators. If you insist on moving in, make sure to request a move-in inspection and a move-out inspection. Take pictures of everything upon moving in and moving out. Even then, management may still charge you and send debt collectors after you, as I gleaned from the Seabrooks’ review."

"You really don’t know these people until it’s time to say goodbye. That day came rather unexpectedly for me when my PhD advisor announced that he would be moving to a new school and offered me the opportunity to come with him. After much deliberation, I accepted his offer to begin a new chapter of my life, but Seminole Flatts did not make it easy. First, they demanded a hefty penalty fee when I cancelled the lease renewal that they had pressured me into signing (only two months into the existing lease) through incessant text messages, phone calls, and emails. Fine, that’s fair, I guess. When the move-out date approached, they changed their move-out time from 5 PM to noon. Apparently 5 PM was a typo in a previous email, which was fine – everyone makes mistakes. But then why not grant residents that 5 hours on which they had already planned? Anyone who has moved knows how precious those extra hours are. The property manager was uncompromising. “If you are not out by noon, you will be charged,” she told me. This is not new; Seminole Flatts management never takes responsibility for their mistakes (I think back to the winter of 2021 when they changed the locks on our doors over the holidays, and we flew back to find the office closed and ourselves locked out). Fine, so I shuffled my day around to be out by noon rather than 5 PM. The real reason I wrote this review came over a month later, when they charged me $710 for damages. Before I engage in a squabble about whether I caused the damages, let me first say that it seems everyone who moved out this year was charged at least $400 under similar pretenses. You can find their reviews if you filter out the bribed 5-star ones. It seems a dozen or so tenants decided to break things on their way out in 2023. I think a more plausible explanation is that revenues weren’t great for Seminole Flatts this year, so they made us pay for their repairs. What’s several hundred dollars more for college students already drowning in debt? Oh, and if you don’t pay? They sic their debt collectors on you, to ruin the future you worked so hard for. Those late nights you stayed up studying? That degree you earned? Hah! Good luck buying a house or securing a loan once they’re done with your credit score. Anyway, about those damages. It was mainly for a bathtub. When I moved in, the bathtub was already cracked, but they had put plaster over the cracks. After three years of usage, the plaster eroded, and the cracks re-appeared. I talked to the maintenance guy about it, and of course he agreed they should have just provided me with a new tub. Seeing that he was overworked and thinking (naively) that I wouldn’t be charged for it under the ordinary wear-and-tear section of the lease agreement, I didn’t do anything about the cracks. Never did I imagine that Seminole Flatts would feign ignorance and accuse me of breaking the tub whose cracks they hid under plaster. I can imagine the smug reply from their property manager as I type these words. “We always recommend completing a move-in inspection!” Well, I guess they got me. I wonder if they play this trick on everyone who’s off to college for the first time. “Students are so busy with unpacking, orientation, classes, part-time jobs, they won’t even notice when we stuff them into broken apartments! Then we can rip them off on every little broken thing they didn’t report!” I’ve seen Seminole Flatts go through 4 different managers in the span of 3 years. Now it makes sense. On one hand, they have the betrayed parents and the distressed students whose debt graves they dug deeper. On the other hand, they have corporate CREI breathing down their necks, asking “Why aren’t you screwing those kids harder?” Eventually, it becomes too much, even for the least sympathetic of people."

"Most reviews on here are basically bribed from residents. Mine isn't. Between me and my roommate, we were charged $400 when moving out for "cleaning." $60 to clean my rooms carpet. $120 to clean the bathroom. $20 for paint. I want to be clear that there were no damages, and that we left the apartment at least as good as it was when we moved in. In all honesty, the staff is nice and it's quiet, but being charged $400 because the cleaning company knows the cost is passed to the residents is unacceptable. I called the office to complain and the manager said I was responsible for cleaning the carpet with a carpet cleaner, cleaning the inside of the DISHWASHER, and thoroughly cleaning even the oven. My buddy was also charged $350. So it's not a 1 case scenario. Even when I called, they actually used everyone being charged that as a justification for why I should pay it. So just keep in mind. Unless you buy a carpet cleaner, and essentially do a professional level cleaning job, they'll just charge you triple what it should be, or else send you to collections."

"Seminole Flatts location is great, that is all that is great. This apartment complex allows one to move into an apartment that was not completely clean, had roaches, and appliances with missing parts. Yet, on your way out they charge several hundred dollars in move out fees for leaving behind 2 minor items and claiming I did not clean the apartment enough. Do not live here unless you want your complaints to be answered with free pizza twice a year. This complex also has homeless people wondering around freely, when your A/C unit breaks, it will, it takes the maintenance of any kind two weeks to get to you. I lived in Tallahassee for 6 years and this is by the worst place I ever lived, save yourself from roaches and being robbed of your hard earned money."

"Best apartment I’ve ever live in while being in Tallahassee! The apartments are so quiet and the 1/1’s are by far the best price you can find in Tallahassee, especially for the proximity near campus. Sydney in the front office is the sweetest and always goes out of her way to help residents. Great pool are too!"