PSA Aria (Pepperwood) & Luma (Temescal) Apartments

To preface, I’ve lived here for many years and have loved it. The (now former) on-site property manager and maintenance crew have been great, always helpful and friendly people.

Pepperwood & Temescal apartments have been bought by new owners and rebranded to Aria & Luma. At the end of last year the property manager let residents know a group of investors would be coming to inspect/tour the complexes. When that group arrived, they were extremely rude— didn’t introduce themselves, walked right past me and into my apartment and began opening doors, cupboards, with really no regard for it being my home. The whole interaction felt off and it was the first sign things were not headed in the right direction.

In the last month or so, the on-site property manager let us know the property was under new ownership, changes were coming, and she had been demoted to an assistant role. Some of those changes were the cost of the laundry machines more than doubling and new fees for online rent payments. I also got an email from someone introducing themselves as the new manager “Hunter.” The new management company is called Cardinal Group, a real estate firm with horrible online reviews from people detailing their awful experiences.

I recently found out that the on-site property manager has been let go. I then got several notices from “Hunter” that prompted me to call them. I was absolutely flabbergasted to find out that Hunter is not a real person at all, it is an AI bot. Genuinely… this is who is responsible for communicating with residents and “handling rent payments.”

I also got an email from “Hunter” saying that renewal season is here and they’ve “officially transitioned to individual bed-by-bed leases.” Offering the individual leases is fine, as is enforcing it for new tenants, but it is *illegal* to force current tenants into a restructured lease when renewing without having just cause to terminate established tenancy (California’s Tenant Protection Act AB 1482). Why? By moving from whole-unit leases to individual leases, this allows the company to effectively terminate your tenancy and start up a new one- meaning they will not have to stay within the CA rent cap of 5% + CPI. This will effectively make everyone’s rent at the “current market rate” getting rid of protected rent hikes from those that have lived here for several years.

I’ve had a handful of other issues (e.g., fees added to my account that shouldn’t have been) and poor interactions with the Cardinal Group staff that I won’t get into here. It’s still not clear who is actually the current landlord or manager for these complexes, apart from an AI bot. But if you’re a current resident, or someone interested in living here, beware of what you might be getting yourself into and protect yourself from getting taken advantage of.