Review History for stcvolunteer

Tuckaway Apartments


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stcvolunteer

Resident 1993 - 2006

1/5/2006

Parking: Each tenant is technically only allowed one visiting vehicle at a time and that vehicle must have a visitor pass. However, no one appears to monitor this closely and people regularly throw parties that clog up every parking spot within reasonable walking distance of your apartment. <br><br>The gate is not very effective. It lacks a security guard, and if someone wants to come in, they can just wait for another car to open it. In addition, the passcode is not a secret in Lawrence. Someone may also just call someone else who lives in Tuckaway and ask them to open the gates, but I don't see that happen as often. If fortunate, you may get a spot on the side of the road like I did one day in early November. The next day, I awoke to discover $1600 worth of damage to my car and no explanatory note. You take your chances parking there, but there aren't many other options much of the time. There are carports available at $40 per month (for half of one garage), but those aren't near my apartment.<br><br><br>Noise: The walls must be somewhat thin here. If my neighbor plays modestly loud bass, I will hear it with relative ease. People also drive through the complex blaring loud music with deep bass, screaming, and honking their horns at 3:00 a.m. on weeknights. You can imagine how bad it can get on Thursday through Saturday nights. The police try their best but are generally unable to do anything. I have called them on at least six occasions and nothing they did prevented future occurrences, so I gave up. The front office initially did not want to deal with my noise complaints and directed me to the police. Management did, however, eventually place a call to my inconsiderate neighbor whose bass would shake my computer, but that deterred him for all of 10 days or so.<br><br><br>Grounds: A few beer bottles are sometimes lying around the pool during the warmer months, and you need to watch where you step to avoid pet feces in the grassy areas because some of these brats won't learn responsibility until their parents cut them off. To Tuckaway's credit, it did post a reward for the name of anyone who failed to clean up after their pet in a public area. Otherwise, there are perks to the appearance of this apartment complex, as it does look appealing from 6th Street and when it is clean. In addition, there is a crew of workers that does a very good job of upkeep on the landscape.<br><br><br>Safety: One Friday morning around 2:00 a.m., a car pulled up directly outside my apartment. It honked repeatedly for fifteen minutes while playing loud bass. This was not the first time it had happened, so I walked outside, got the license plate number ("granny-style," I know, but I had a speech and a five-hour lab later that day and am not keen on losing my sleep in the first place). <br><br>First, the guy started swearing, then he got into personal attacks. I returned to my apartment and locked it. The guy and his friends proceeded to repeatedly ring my doorbell, tried to open the door, and then it sounded as if they tried to break down the door. They left before the police arrived.<br><br>On two other occasions--and I am not making this up--a caller I didn't even know gave me death threats. Apparently, whoever lived here before me had enemies or else someone gave a false phone number (my number) in place of his or her own. Screening phonecalls is not the responsibility of Tuckaway, but a community like that certainly does not make me feel safe.<br><br>There were a couple other minor instances besides these and my damaged car (I was told this was not the first instance of a hit-and-run at Tuckaway), some of which can be attributed to the alochol abundance around here. I will close this section by reiterating that the gate does not prevent anyone who wants to get in from getting in and warning that the security cameras are ineffective to the point where you can barely make out faces, much less car models, on the recording.<br><br><br>Construction: Several things have broken here--faucets on my sink, faucets in my bath/shower, towel racks, the dryer, the cord to the ceiling fan, and the glass light shades on two lights, to name a few. A couple were partly my fault, but most of the things are pretty breakable in the first place and broke on their own. The upside to that is it will be cheap to replace them and most were non-vital. Also, I already mentioned the cheap material used in the walls--it crumbles like bread. The apartment also tends to get a little stuffy or really cold at times, and finagling with the thermostat is a pain. This may only be an issue in my apartment, though. There have been a couple power outages when there was no storm weather outside as well, but those may not have been the apartment complex's fault.<br><br><br>Maintenance: The maintenance man only seems to come in a reasonable amount of time if a problem with my apartment is costing Tuckaway money. I understand he is busy, but he just does not show up sometimes. One time, when the college maintenance guy came, he fixed the sink faucets and they broke again an hour later. Fortunately, he was still in the area to permanently fix the problem.<br><br><br>Staff: The staff is friendly enough, but I have not seen it take productive initiative when major problems arise. Solving the parking issue would be as easy as delegating one labeled parking spot to each apartment resident and then making the remainder visitor spots. I proposed this to a staff member to no avail.<br><br>In addition, I have lost some faith in the personnel here. Some members of the staff will often say the right thing--"I'll bring that up at our next management meeting" or "I'll get that information for you in the next day or so" and then forget or neglect to do it. When I have a problem now, I'm more inclined to just ignore it or pay an outside company to fix it.<br><br><br>Overall: I pay $750 per month, plus $25 for my dog. Sometimes, it feels like paying $50,000 for a Honda accord from a used car salesman, but then I realize how poor or lacking many of the other apartment complexes around here are. To continue the analogy, I'd rather have that Accord than a 15-year-old car that can barely turn the engine over and breaks down half the time on the highway during winter--even if that car comes a little cheaper. <br><br>It is possible that I simply had a REALLY bad string of bad luck here, but that would surprise me. It also may be that my apartment is faulty; after all, it is not the same model as most others in the complex. I should also note that this is my first apartment and perhaps apartments in general tend to have some problems. Tuckaway came highly recommended when I moved here in the spring of 2004. It has not lived up to its billing, but odds are I would do a lot worse if I moved and saved a couple hundred bucks each month.<br><br>If you have the money to spend and you must have an apartment, I suppose I would recommend coming here over the other apartment complexes (note: I only looked at pet-friendly places, so perhaps there are other good ones out there for less money). However, compared with getting a few roommates and renting a house, joining a scholarship hall, or signing up with a fraternity or sorority--whatever floats your boat--I would not recommend it at this point. [If you are not a student (this place is mostly students), then disregard that last statement.] I plan on switching to a different apartment in the complex this fall and will revise my review if things improve.

    Review 34 out of 40

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