Secord Landing - City Vibe Developments - Spruce Grove, Alberta

Patrick H.

The building and units are really nice. It’s kept mostly clean other than the parkade since there are no garbages. The gym is tiny considering it’s shared between two buildings. Guest parking is a nightmare, I’ve had multiple guests and even myself get $80 tickets because the check in app wasn’t working… no warnings or anything.

Athena 0.

All the one star reviews about moving out are absolutely true. No matter how much you clean, paint and do every single thing on their ridiculous list of move out demands, they will still charge you for absolutely everything they can. If there's a crumb in your fridge they will charge it back to you. A small scuff on a wall, completely within normal wear and tear, they will charge it back to you. There is absolutely no wear and tear in their books that they should cover. Take pictures of absolutely everything when you move in, and move out so you can dispute it.
If you rent here be prepared to be bullied whenever you need something fixed. If they even fix it at all. My patio door was broken for months, with a small toddler, and they never fixed it. They tried to charge me 300 dollars one night, when my heat wasn't working. You can hear absolutely everything from your downstairs neighbours. I would steer clear from renting from thus place, they just want your money and nothing else, and are complete bullies when it comes to anything they are required to do.

Natalia

Do not rent here.

Their competition, Broadstreet properties (any of their buildings) are a much better company than City Vibe.

They raise rent every chance they get. For example, when I moved in in 2021 I was paying $1141 for a tiny one bed, one bath. (Which is actually just a small bedroom inside of a hallway sized unit with sliding doors& no windows In the bedroom or “den”). By the following renewal period I was paying $1242, and the next I was paying $1357. They provide a “loyalty discount,” to long term tenants of about - $10.

The units are built out of cheap garbage that’s bound to have issues.

They hand out $80 parking tickets to anyone parking in the visitor parking constantly, so you can’t have overnight guests unless they want an insanely overpriced ticket. Why the visitor parking spaces aren’t completely free is beyond me considering the building is in west Edmonton ?

Staff are all horribly rude & awful to communicate with (the only 2 staff I had a positive experience with was Joanne O & Karen Decoste). Trina Mathurin in particular was one of the worst people I’ve ever had to deal with.

This company does nothing but scam and take money from its tenants. They will ALWAYS keep your damage deposit, I’ve spoken with numerous past tenants who all have the same experience (we are all now looking into legal options against cityvibe & the last time this tenant lawsuit was mentioned in the comments, they had all of their Google reviews erased.)

Parking lots are never properly maintained and all winter long you have to skate to get inside the building without breaking bones.

You can hire cleaners, painters etc, most apartments also have grace for normal wear & tear.. not city vibe!! They WILL take your money & look for anything to charge you for afterward.

I’ve rented at multiple properties in Edmonton & had my damage deposit fully returned at all, and had GOOD landlords in the past. This place is an absolute nightmare that I frankly wouldn’t recommend to my worst enemy.

This company is the worst I’ve ever dealt with. BROADSTREET PROPERTIES, actually cares about its tenants, refunds damage deposits in full (even with minor damages) & has staff on site who are kind, caring and centered around providing their tenants with a positive experience. CITYVIBE is nothing but money hungry scammers.

Avoid this company at all costs.

Miss O.

I would give this place 0 stars. As other reviews have said, these are money-grabbing, swindlers. The management in this place looks for any excuse to rob you of your damage deposit. They charge you for everything and they charge you obscene amounts. If you book your own carpet cleaning with the company THEY recommend, it's $150. If THEY book the cleaning for you, it's $200 - $300, FROM THE SAME COMPANY. Their "policies" and "procedures" make NO SENSE and are solely in place to get every last penny out of you.

The building and units may look nice, but there are flaws inside and out. The unit layouts and planning are awful. Some rooms are extremely cold, some rooms are incredibly hot, kitchen lights glare into bedrooms, etc. Hallway carpets have stains from dog urine. Yet tenants are constantly sent mass emails and pestered for the smallest infractions - garbage left out in the "wrong place", the balcony has something other than "patio furniture", dogs walking in the wrong area, etc. You name it, you get an email about it the next day. Yet they, themselves, don't hold themselves accountable to the extent they hold their tenants. The amount of times I've had to request maintenance to come back in and fix the same issue over and over again is unfathomable. The number of times I've asked them to do something about people sitting outside and playing loud music and smoking/drinking until 10:00 pm ... and they did nothing. But put something other than a patio chair on your balcony and they email you right away.

The move-out and "cleaning checklist" is an excuse to take every penny they can out of you. You tell them a million times that carpet cleaning is booked, and they still try to charge you for it. They do not treat you like a human being at all and expect the unit to be returned in better condition than it was given. They put the burden of making the unit move-in ready for the next tenant on YOU and do not have the units cleaned professionally afterward. It's unfathomable that regular tenants are held responsible for making a unit live-in friendly. There is no quality control other than the fear they keep holding over you of not getting your damage deposit back. They hope that fear makes you a good cleaner, I guess?

If any minor detail is wrong in the move-out, even though you are assured that "regular day-to-day issues are expected and don't come out of your damage deposit", they are taken out of your damage deposit. If your walls have a scratch or a stain or aren't 1000% clean, you're charged $300+ for a cleaner. On what planet does a cleaner charge $300+ to wipe a wall? I was assured that re-painting wouldn't come out of my damage deposit. So why am I now getting charged for the necessary painting? At move-in, I was told that management expects a certain amount of repairs to be needed when you move out and that these repairs don't come at a cost to you. Do NOT believe them. They would charge you for walking into the unit to do the inspection if they could.

These people are AWFUL. They do not care about you and do not treat you like people. You are a money rat to them. They are simply vampires trying to get every last drop of blood. The damage deposit is something they hold over your head, so you jump through their hoops hoping to get it back. Then at the end of the day, they take the tiniest infraction and charge you 100% more of what it actually costs to fix. I cleaned my place for a WEEK and they still found things to charge me for.

The staff do not communicate with each other at all and everything is a mess. The right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.

This company needs to be sued. I will be calling the LTB and consulting with a lawyer. I recommend anyone who's had their damage deposit unfairly taken to contact me or respond to this review so we can file a class-action lawsuit. I have extensive videos and photos of the unit I left and the condition I left it in.

Stop trying to steal people's hard-earned money for things that YOU, as management, should be fixing on your OWN account.

Anastasia R.

In my 15+ years of renting, I have never had such a horrible experience as dealing with this company. This building makes roughly over $400K a month after expenses. That's $400K worth of profit, yet the building managers create any excuse to charge you for things just to get your deposit down as low as possible. If you rent here, just assume you won't see a penny of your deposit ever again because it's more important for higher management to buy a third house, second yacht, and a private jet (I guess)? I see no other reason why, after following an extensive and incredibly detailed "Cleaning Checklist" (which basically told you to wash the baseboards and walls and make the unit move-in ready for the next person), I was still charged $270 for a cleaner? When a cleaner charges about that much for a full move-out clean in the first place? Make it make sense.

Management only cares about money. They never fix the issues in your unit (or have someone come out who just looks at it and does nothing), but posts an eviction notice on your door within 2 days if you don't pay rent (not in my case, but I saw it on someone's door).

Basic things that all other, normal, and professional landlords do before moving a new tenant in (e.g., painting, light cleaning, etc.) these people will do at a fee to you. Do not expect a normal and reasonable fee either. Everything is about double or triple what you would get yourself in the market.

Avoid this company "City Vibe Developments" in their entirety. They have multiple buildings throughout Calgary and Edmonton. Their policies, "cleaning checklist", and (I assume) treatment of people go across to all of their properties.

TLDR; gross mismanagement, greedy upper management, you won't get your deposit back no matter what you do, avoid like the plague.

Lori &. J. M.

I paid top dollar for professional cleaning and professional carpet cleaning upon my move out. I was cleared out by Mahalia Miller and was told that I went above and beyond my obligations and that I would receive my entire damage deposit back. She also pointed out the 6 small screw holes and reiterated that it would not reflect negatively with my damage deposit.
A few days later I received an email saying that the 6 screw holes which mounted my tv to the wall were going to cost $300.00 which would be taken out of my damage deposit On top of that they were also charging me an additional months rent (even though they had secured new tenants for my suite) and an additional $50.00 for my old parking space?!? I’m shocked.. Jekyll and Hyde I do not recommend anyone dealing with this organization, wolves in sheep’s clothing!! Beware!!

Daniel R.

This business is a typically structured home-scam. You have employees who don't care about being fair with the tenants, upper management that isn't accountable for their practice of legally swindling for damage deposits, a 1% per year 'loyalty discount', which maxxes out at 3%, and which is easily outpaced by their yearly and needless base rent cost increase, and a deceiving website to lure people in.

Amritta was fantastic, but left last year.

When we mentioned that our internet wasn't working, it took reminding them for a month for them to fix it, when we mentioned out ac wasn't working, it took 1 month of us proving that it wasn't working before they started on their 2 month procrastination fixes, since the first person they sent was only a diagnostic tech. When we moved out, we had marks on the walls that easily could have been cleaned. The cleaner, Aaron, and his team are awesome, though they're told by city vibe not to clean the walls because 'it makes it hard for the new paint to stay'. Paint wasn't needed in the first place. So for something that easily could've been cleaned, they'd rather charge us $425 on the damage deposit and repaint the entire unit.

They consistently try to make sure the tenant isn't there for the moveout, saying 'due to covid, you cant' be there' or even, 'I'm not working on your lease end date, so we'll have to do it ourselves'. They say this so they can write whatever they want on the move out inspection form and take your damage deposit over anything small, or even made up damages, while also trying to exclude you from any aspect of their legal processes afterwards.

You're not allowed to use your balcony for storage or smoking, you can't use your underground parking spot for storage, visitor parking is done by indigo, so if you don't sign in right away for your 12 hour slot (anything more isn't free), you get an $80 ticket.

Horrible experience, their only goal is to get your money.

A M.

Wow! I set up an appointment with Mahalia to view a couple of apartments and she was so nice. Normally you get a quick run through and that's it. Instead Mahalia answered all of my questions with real answers!! I didn't end up renting (wasn’t quite what I was looking for) but the experience was still a pleasant one. Good job hiring people who care!