Momma always told me, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." So I'll start off with the niceties, and move on to breaking momma's rules.

The location is the only thing these places have going for them. They're quite-aways back from the road, but still located right in the middle of University drive, within minutes of the mall, UAH, and downtown. Very convenient as far as that goes. This gives you some illusion of seclusion and security amongst the tall trees and closed-circle roads.

The buildings themselves, while for the most part identical, are owned by a number of different housing companies, primarily Eagles Management. The walls truly are paper-thin, making neighbor's pets effectively into your pets, so get used to barking and howling when your neighbors go to work. If they smoke or cook, you get a good dose of that too, which can be nice if they're cooking something good, but bad if they're smoking...other stuff. Likewise, you'll become intimately familiar with your neighbors' tastes in music, television shows, illnesses, and bedroom proclivities.

The washer and dryer they provide for you are left over from the Nixon era, and will do their very best to rattle the foundations to splinters. Actually getting your clothes clean is a secondary function, and not likely to occur. The management gets a hearty laugh when you ask for a newer model that doesn't require coal power. The first time I ran my washer upstairs after my new downstairs neighbors moved in, they came upstairs, worried something was tragically wrong. And it was! I didn't seperate my whites!

When I moved in, the apartment was in barely tolerable shape, and it's only gone downhill from there. I swear the building was built by blind, braindamaged monkeys. Examples include:

The electrical outlets are all upside down. This doesn't sound so bad until you try to plug in your battery chargers, nightlights, and air fresheners upside down.

The towel racks are held in drywall by mismatched random wood screws of varying sizes. (I know because I accidentally pulled mine off, and then properly remounted it with drywall screws)

The phone lines are ridiculously miswired. Unplugging a phone in one room may unplug half the apartment's phones. Bellsouth doesn't care, and neither does the management.

The ground wires are/were sticking out of some of the light fixtures where they were screwed into the ceiling. I'm no electrician, but this could be dangerous, not because the ground wires are sticking out, but because they aren't..you know..plugged into the ground lines.

Most of the wallpaper and paint seem shoddily applied, and are either peeling, lumpy or crooked. This is especially true in the bathroom, where steam has summarily removed my cheap wallpaper.

The floors creak like in the old horror movies. My neighbors have commented that they always know when I'm home, because their ceiling sounds like cracking ice..I'm not fat either.

There isn't nearly enough insulation, and the apartments are supplied with a TINY Air Conditioning Unit. Translation: In summer, YOU WILL DIE. It never gets below 80 degrees in my apartment, with the AC running full tilt, all summer long. I hope you like high utility bills.
Management's excuse' "Nothing we can do, sorry."
My Advice: Invest in fans. Lots of fans.

I have plenty of other building complaints that aren't necessarily contractor related, and you get to hear some of them, lucky you.

The last time maintenance came in to get into my ceiling crawl, they kicked half my closet ceiling in, on the way back down. They never bothered fixing it after multiple complaints, so I repaired it myself.

At some point, they decided that having two door locks was redundant, so they left the deadbolts in place, and replaced all of the entryway doorknob locks with CLOSET DOORKNOBS.
This is appalling to my sense of personal security, and HIGHLY UNPROFESSIONAL, not to mention insecure!
When confronted about this, management stated, "Alabama law says you only have to have one lock on the door." Leave it to these jokers to go with the absolute least effort required by law.
You're not allowed chain locks or anything else that might impede maintenance crews. They recently hastily screwed some cheap looking metal plates to the doorjambs in order to 'stop people from breaking in'. It strikes me that any criminal willing to break in isn't going to have any qualms about unscrewing a metal plate to get to the lock, but maybe that's just me.

Management claims they monitor the parking lots for criminal activity, but that doesn't stop car thieves from breaking in and taking your stereo, (which does happen routinely.) They also claim to have a 'Courtesy Officer', but I think it's more accurately expressed as an 'Imaginary Officer.'

Despite constant bug spraying and the absolute lack of food in my apartment, I have a persistent bug problem. Spiders and various odd insects come in through the venting on the ceilings, providing ample nightmare fuel. In the spring/summer, ants march in every available windowsill, which has prompted me to caulk the windowsills like maintenance should have done in the first place.
Did I mention you don't have any kind of screens on your windows either' Well, you don't.

There are no amenities to speak of, unless you want to count the utter disregard of anyone and everyone for parking rules. People park anywhere they feel like, right in front of 'No Parking' signs, and I've never seen anyone get a ticket. You also don't get access to any kind of hose, so forget washing your car or hosing down a mop bucket or anything outside. Their excuse' "People use up too much water." There is no pool, no tennis court, nothing. Not that this fact bothers me in particular, but it might irk some folks who enjoy swimming in their neighbors' filth.

As far as TV/Internet goes, you will either get a little dish, or you will get Comcast. If you want broadband internet, you will get Comcast; you have no other choice. Comcast has a monopoly on the entire complex, so you cannot get Knology Cable or Bellsouth DSL there. That's why you will notice a lot of little dishes plastered to balconies, and lots of comcast vans roaming around daily, like perverse 'Good Humor' men.

The maintenance staff are actually very competent, helpful, and prompt, if you can get management to actually pass on the maintenance requests to them.
Protip: Sometimes it's easier to chase the vans and flag them down to tell them yourself, than wait for the note to be passed down.

So, let's talk about what you're going to pay for all this. The rent varies per floorplan, and in fact, varies per person. Different tenants may be offered different rental rates depending on the monthly specials, occupancy, or the alignment of the Moon and Jupiter. One of my neighbors pays $30.00 less than I do per month, and one of my other neighbors pays $30.00 more. This isn't based on race or anything, it's just the whim of management; whims, of which they have many.

The Eagles management is nothing short of full-on slimy. They will try to find any excuse not to deal with your problems, and will attempt to charge you for anything they have to do, even when it's part of their contract responsibility. If they get tired of dealing with your apartment's problems, they'll just tell you "No," and there's nothing you can really do about it. If you want to live there, you had better read up on your AL renter's rights, and keep your receipts.

What's more, every time you attempt to renew your lease, they WILL try to jack up the rent 10-15% for a 12 month lease, 25-30% for a 6 month lease, or up to 50% for a monthly rate.
If you contest this, they will give you the paper-thin excuse of "keeping up with inflation." This is a strange tactic for a rental company who can't keep tenants in half their buildings; punishing what loyal masochists decide to stick around.

Even once you decide to leave, they will try to stick you at every turn. Read your lease VERY CAREFULLY, because they can -and will- use the fine print against you. If you try to leave, they only accept noticed to vacate during the first and the fifth of the month. And you have to turn it in BEFORE you pay your last month's rent, or else they can lock you in for another month at whatever rent they choose. The lease SAYS monthly rates are 25$ above normal, but they can -and will- tack an additional 100$ fee onto that whenever they feel like it. They refuse to work with you, help you out, or allow you to appeal. I was told "If the owners wanted to talk to people like YOU, they wouldn't have hired ME." The apartment managers are rude and hateful, and if they are any indication of the slumlords who OWN the properties, hell is probably missing a few noteworthy celebrities.

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