If you're looking for a cheap apartment and don't care about good service from the office or about living in a good neighborhood, this is the place for you.


- Affordable rent.
We had a 3/2 for $635.

- Conveniently located near several call centers.
I worked at APAC and my fiance worked at Cross Country, so it was nice to be able to walk to work in less than five minutes. Just be VERY CAREFUL crossing the street! People speed down Pantano Road, and they will honk at you and tailgate if you are not doing 40MPH on this 25MPH road.

- Near the Park Place Mall, affordable gas, shopping, grocery stores, and restaurants. Also near the MVD, which was terribly convenient.

- Very close to schools
BUT they are *terrible* schools. Dietz Elementary and Carson Middle are "Underperforming" schools. They have minimal GATE programs because (and I was told this by a school official) they're too busy just trying to keep the kids in school.

- Many apartments have mountain views!
Can't complain about that!


- Mold in the walls
My fiance and I would always wake up with sore throats and chests, dry coughs, dry eyes and noses, and swollen faces. My daughter always had a bad cough, runny nose, swollen face, colds, headaches, and nausea. We honestly thought that she must be dying.

It turns out that she's just allergic to mold. When we moved out, all of these things stopped. The whole family is 500% more healthy now.

- Not enough dumpsters.
They are always overflowing with trash. Also, you could tell it was almost trash day, because people would bring their old furniture out and sit it next to the dumpster.

- Rude and negligent office staff
When I got a divorce, we signed papers for my husband to be taken off the lease. Later, I asked for my fiance to be put on the lease. When we went to renew the lease, my fiance's name was still not on the lease, and we re-applied to have him added.

Last month, when I went to give my 30 day move-out notice, my ex-husband was on the lease (what'!), but my fiance wasn't. This means that they lost *two* applications with my fiance's Social Security number and date of birth on them.

The office staff is rude on the phone, but sweet to your face (if you're lucky). They always act like you're bothering them.

The office used to hold your packages for you. When I first moved in, you had to have a UPS or USPS package slip in order to pick up a package. You gave the slip to the office person, and they bring your package. Eventually, they would just point over to the corner where the packages were and tell you to find it yourself. After this, so many packages were stolen that they stopped offering to keep your packages. I had four packages stolen in three years, the last being a Christmas present in 2005.

When I called in January to ask when we had to sign a new lease, the lady on the phone told me that we had been on Month-to-Month since August. Upon reflection, we remembered that our rent had gone up in August, but when we asked why, the lady had told us that our rent "had just gone up" and shrugged.

- Maintenance crew repeatedly did not complete repairs
I would have to call at least twice and up to four times before a maintenance man would come out. That may be the fault of the office staff, but I don't know.

There are a couple of guys who do a great job, very polite, and get everything fixed right away.

Then there are the guys who would do a shoddy job. Then I'd have to call another 1 to 4 times to get someone else to fix it.

One night, our toilet backed up and flooded the bathroom. We called the night repairman to fix the toilet and asked if they had a shop vac to clean up the water. He told us that he didn't have access to the shed where the shop vac was, so he couldn't help. He also said he would come out to fix the toilet the next day, and then didn't.

Also, the wall in the shower collapsed one day. They came in, ripped out all of the tile, and installed a wraparound wall. This wall was so shoddy that it started to crack. We asked the office what they were going to do several times, and never got a response.

- Awful neighborhood.
There are drug dealers in the parking lots, especially in the back.

The police are there at least once a week, usually twice. In February, they were there seven times, once for a murder, complete with a police with a police helicopter sweep. There is at least one murder a year. Occasionally, there are police helicopter sweeps where they shine their lights into your windows, regardless of how late it is.

Once, we had the US Marshalls out at the complex, complete with helmets, bulletproof vests, and large guns, to arrest someone. There's nothing quite like walking out onto the balcony and having a man with an assault rifle tell you to go back inside.

People let their kids run wild. They leave messes *everywhere*, deface and destroy property, climb on or IN the washers and dryers in the laundry room, leave the washer and dryer doors open so your time runs out and your clothes are still wet and/or dirty. The kids have figured out that they can turn off the water and electricity because the utility controls are not locked. There used to be garbage cans in the mail vestibules for your junk mail, but the kids kept setting them on fire. They run, play, and ride their bikes in the parking lot, don't care about oncoming traffic, and dent and scratch your parked car.

The laundry rooms are dirty. The machines may or may not work at any point, but you never know, because people take the "Out of Order" signs off of them (probably the kids again), and the property managers don't turn them off. It takes a ridiculous amount of time (up to a month) for the machines to get fixed. People steal your laundry *all the time* so you have to sit in the laundry room to guard your clothes, and the A/C doesn't always work.

If you walk around the complex at night, you can smell fumes from various people doing drugs, either in the house with the windows open, on the front porch or balcony, in the unlit walkways between buildings, or in the parking lot.

People leave their trash, broken furniture, and other unsightly items on the front porches or balconies. If they don't want to do that, they will leave it on *your* porch, on the walkways, in the parking lot, or, amazingly, on the roof of your building. If you leave nice things on your balcony, they may be stolen. Tenants have gotten into the habit of putting up screens and boards around the balconies to hide their outdoor furniture and to keep people out.

People speed through the parking lot. The posted speed limit is 10MPH, but sometimes people come through at 30 or 40. They don't care that you're pulling in or out of a parking spot. The driving lane is so narrow that if large trucks park in a spot, there's barely enough room for two cars to pass each other. If a large truck parks in the space across from you, there's barely enough room for you to pull out.

They charge for covered parking spots, but if you live in the back, they're all covered, but not all of them have been bought, and there aren't enough uncovered parking spots for all of the people who don't want to pay for an assigned spot that someone is going to steal anyway. Also, if you live in the back and park in one of the spots that happens to be assigned, people have a habit of keying your car.

There is always loud music somewhere. People drive through the lot late at night blasting their stereo so loud that it can set off your car alarm (and you *need* a car alarm here!). They have parties in the parking lots. Even after the music is turned off, there are plenty of people yelling.

The walls are paper thin, so you can hear your neighbors. You can hear their TVs and radios. You can hear the water in their toilets, showers, and sinks. You can hear the garbage disposal and the dishwasher. You can hear the doors closing. You can hear them having sex. You can hear them *talking.* The office generally doesn't respond to any "thin wall" related noise complaints, so if your neighbors start playing their radios and singing and slamming doors at 6am, or if they stay up all night watching TV, or if they're up at 3am playing loud video games with heavy bass on the surround sound, no one cares.


Maybe now that Eastside Place has changed their name to Overlook at Pantano (not to be confused with the KB Home community, Pantano Overlook, being built down the street), they will change their ways and make this a better place to live. But after three years of steadily declining service and quality of the community, I doubt it.

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