Apartment Review for San Mateo - Irvine, CA

In general, my living experience while I was *at* San Mateo was good. The staff were generally friendly and helpful, the grounds well-maintained, and the neighbors generally nice. However, when I moved out, they decided to stick me with an entire carpet replacement (over $1000), citing "urine damage". Presumably, this was because I had 2 cats. Since I had taken pictures before I had left of a very clean carpet, I was quite surprised. Their reasons for doing so were exceedingly flimsy ("well, we had to replace the whole carpet because of aesthetic reasons"), and they told me they didn't have to provide pictures since they trust their third-party janitorial surveyor. I am currently resolving this through a lawyer. My experience with this has been incredibly unpleasant and I would never choose to live at this place again. Since this is an Irvine Company rental, I fear that any apartment complex owned by them may try the same thing. Definitely not recommended.