I lived at Sandcastle for just over two years. At first, things were okay, though the manager was really hard to get in touch with. That changed about six months later, when a new manager took over, but the longer I lived there, the more problems I started to notice and have.

The building itself is very old; there are numerous cracks in the walls throughout the hallways and in the unit I lived in. The third floor would become unbearably hot in the summer months -- there is no air conditioning, and there are no ceiling fans in the units. There are many children, some are noisier than others, but that's to be expected. There are periodic automobile break-ins in the back parking lot, and there has been some vandalism as well; the only security measure that has been taken is a warning sticker placed on the back entrance of the building. There used to be a really bad problem with residents leaving old furniture and junk in common areas, but that seems to have been fixed...

When I moved into the building I noticed little things about the apartment: the holes that had been patched up here and there...the shoddy cleaning job in the kitchen (I found numerous marbles, plastic freezer bags, and dreidels in the cabinets and under the stove)...the chipped paint in the bathtubs. It was nothing dire, but when a previously repaired hole caved in once more that's where the trouble began. Management was notified of the damage in February of 2006. The repair was not done until April of this year (2007) -- no joke. The man they brought in arrived on my doorstep at roughly 8:30 am to survey the damage. By 12:15 pm all he had done was take the old door out of the unit and leave his tools sitting on my floor. The door was replaced that day but a week later I received a bill for almost $200.00! Seeing as how an entire door is only $21.97 at Home Depot and can be replaced in a half hour or less, I had a major problem with this, but the owner never returned my calls to discuss the charges with me.

My entire oven door came off once. That was fixed the next day, but the fact that it came off so easily was more than unsettling. Pieces of the wall in the master bathroom would fall off at random, for no reason at all. The fan in the master bath was also crap, as mildew began to form on the walls anyway. The final straw came in late May, when we were alerted that water was pouring into the unit below us as a result of us simply using our shower. The problem was not only with the shower; the entire floor was starting to cave in!! I gave notice shortly after that particular discovery was made. Between the horrific heat and the death of an entire bathroom (with no compensation for this inconvenience whatsoever, I might add), I was done.

I wish I could say that the story ended with my leaving and being happy in my new residence, but unfortunately the nightmare continues, as Scheider's Properties saw fit to keep $789.00 of my $800.00 security deposit (after being told during the moveout inspection by the manager that the place looked good and that only $200.00 or so would be taken out for carpet cleaning). When I talked to the owner about the disappearance of my money, he was extremely rude; very defensive from the moment I had him on the phone. I brought up the major inconvenience of being short a bathroom and of paying full rent for the unit despite this, and it was then that he told me that the bathroom floor was "nonsense" and that it was a "soft spot that they've fixed," and that there were no problems with the shower. However, I tend to think that water pouring out of the downstairs tenant's closet when operating said shower is a HUGE problem.

In closing, stay away from this place at all costs! You will save yourself a ton of money and headaches by renting elsewhere!!

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