3514 Surf Ave,

Brooklyn, NY 11224

Beautiful modern buildings and apartments

In over 40 years of renting, many of them in New York, this is the most unprofessional management company I have ever dealt with. The concierge and janitorial teams are great, however, the rest of the staff is incredibly unprofessional, particularly Andrea and Maria. It’s a running joke amongst the residents about who is privileged enough to receive a response from either one of them. The buildings and apartments are beautiful but the neighborhood is so sketchy and isolated at the end of CI, it’s not worth any savings you think you’re getting in rent. I ended up abandoning my lease with 2 months free rent remaining - that’s how unhappy I was living at Ocean Drive. When I vacated, I left my keys/fobs on the counter and told Maria. Miraculously she responded “perfect” but they still deducted $450 from my deposit. I had to get the state attorney general involved to get it back. Red Apple then backdated the check to make it look like it was sent but postmarks don’t lie.

Here are the issues I encountered, some of which are not management’s fault but one should be aware of them before moving into the buildings.

1. Management allows residents to have dogs in violation of the pet addendum regarding weight, dangerous breeds, and behavior. Dogs defecate and urinate inside the buildings, and onto the balconies and balcony furniture of other apartments below them. Some dogs are left on the balconies to bark for hours. When I complained about this, security told me that I “don’t like dogs.” Residents also bring them into restricted areas like the residents’ terrace and lounge. Security does nothing besides send threatening emails.
2. The neighborhood is very noisy. Even though it’s at the end of the boardwalk, there is a lot of boardwalk noise in the summer and drag racing on Surf Avenue late at night. I needed a white noise machine every night to sleep.
3. The appliances are junk. They look nice and have the Whirlpool name but they are pretty much useless. A big selling point is having a washer and dryer in the unit but on the day I moved in, maintenance told me to only use it for small loads. I know several residents besides myself who had the washer/dryer units replaced but they are just replaced with the same crappy unit. The washer doesn’t spin all the water out and the dryer doesn’t finish drying. The washers in the laundry room are not much better. The oven has a sensor so it continuously clicks and reignites and sounds like it’s about to explode.
4. In the D units, the smoke detector is so close to stove that in order to cook I had to turn the vent to max, put a shower cap over the smoke detector, open the balcony door (if it wasn’t windy), and have a fan set to high to keep from setting off the alarm. The kitchen was sometimes unusable for cooking.
5. The bathroom looks gorgeous but does not have a practical design. The vanity mirror is so close to the sink you can’t put pump soap or a toothbrush holder on it. The shower walls are textured so there’s no where to put a caddy or keep essentials.
6. Its extremely windy by the beach. Several times a week we received messages about having to bring our balcony furniture inside and close our doors and windows. This gets old fast. There are no screens and my living room windows didn’t open so the balcony door was the only way to get fresh air. Balcony furniture ended up inside the living room most of the time.
7. From the moment I moved in I encountered black dust in my unit. I thought it was from new construction but after almost a year I had a daily covering of black dust on my counters and furniture. I’m sure in my lungs as well.
8. Getting mail/packages is a problem. Mailmen constantly mix up the two buildings and leave mail in the wrong box. You can’t get your mail unless the other tenant gets it for you. You cannot pick up any packages unless a concierge is at the desk. Security cannot release them to you.
9. I don’t know what the promotion is now but when I toured the unit, I was promised a restaurant and store in the building and a ferry to easily get to Manhattan. None of that materialized. No one wants to invest in the neighborhood. Retail shop buildings and restaurants remain vacant. There is one small market about 10 minutes walking distance. No cafes, no nice restaurants. Nearest subway is a 20 minute walk. You will definitely need a car if you can afford the parking. There’s is nothing worthwhile in the neighborhood and it’s incredibly difficult to get anywhere else like Manhattan or Long Island.
10. For a concrete building, the walls between apartments are paper thin. I could hear every word my neighbor said, coughing, music, tv, iPhone alarm, etc. It’s also difficult to tell where noise is coming from. Security told me this is because of the rebar in the concrete and the way it conducts sound. I could hear dogs barking from four different apartments through my apartment walls. Some of these apartments were on other floors and down the hall (thru elevator banks) not even close to my apartment. Also, when people used trash chutes on other floors, I could hear garbage rattling down the chute thru my walls.
11. If your balcony is over the terrace it is very noisy from late night parties, etc.
12. The most common complaint, besides noise, was about the smell of smoke (marijuana and cigarettes) coming through the ventilation system into other apartments. The buildings are non-smoking but numerous residents violate this rule. If your balcony door is open, you get smoke from people smoking on their balconies. Again, management does nothing besides threaten tenants with eviction which, to my knowledge, never happens. They ask tenants to report other tenants to management, however, since the smoke comes thru the ventilation system, you can’t tell where it’s coming from so it’s difficult to know who to complain about.
13. Security is too familiar with residents. I am aware of a few single women, including myself, who received odd texts from the head of security after hours.

These buildings look beautiful but trust me, it’s a golden palace on top of a pile of shit, run by a shit management company. There are way better options in NYC.

Try more honest business practices. Make one building a non-pet building