I moved into Archstone Willow Glen at the end of August and have an 11-month lease with the property. I chose Archstone because they have properties throughout the country and are known for above average apartment complexes and management for the kind of prices renters pay. However, this has not been my experience with this particular property.

PARKING. First, I did not realize that parking would be such a nightmare. If you're not home by at least 7 p.m., then you will NOT be able to find parking within the complex. In my first 3 weeks of living here, I was usually forced to park at least one to two buildings away from my actual building. While I was informed prior to renting that parking (in uncovered spaces only) are on a first-come, first-serve basis, I have never lived in a complex where I was unable to find at least one parking spot somewhere on the premises. One would think that a complex would be built with at least enough parking spaces for one car per unit. However, I came home one night at 9:30 p.m. and having circled the entire complex, I was unable to find a single available, uncovered parking spot. Therefore, I took the chance and parked in an empty carport. By the next morning, my car was gone and I had to go to the towing yard, pay $200, and bail out my car. I also lost a day of work. When I informed the aparment manager of the terrible parking situation, I was told again that parking is first-come, first-serve and that if I could not find parking at night in the complex, then I should park outside. This begs the question of why, as a single female, would I pay over $1600/month to live in a gated community only to be forced to come home before 7 p.m. at night or risk parking on the street and walk in the dark just to get home' Apparently, this is not the management's problem though.

Recently the management started to reinforce the policy of having all renters place parking stickers on their car windows in order to park inside the complex at night and to have guests hang tags on their rearview mirrors. However, this still does not solve the problem of the lack of parking spaces since many families own more than 1 vehicle. Thus, I have resorted to renting a carport for $50/month just to guarantee myself a parking space, peace of mind, and a social life.

CLEANLINESS. Second, the management did not thoroughly clean my apartment. I had done a walk-through of the unit prior to renting it and noticed that the carpets were very dirty and spotty because the prior tenant owned pet(s). I requested that the carpet be changed out for these reasons but management decided that shampooing would be enough to do the trick. The first week I moved in, I had to self-spray the apartment for fleas because I was getting bitten. And even though I've vacuumed my floor many times, I am still picking up short, white animal furs off the carpet whenever I lay down on it.

GYM. Finally, the workout room is decently sized and has quite a number of good machines and weights. However, there is always a broken treadmill (out of 2) in the gym that just does not get fixed. I reported the problem about a month ago and was told that a maintenance request had been submitted several weeks prior but that the company still has not sent a representative to get it fixed. When I asked management what the timeline they thought the treadmill would likely get fixed in, the only response I got was, "We don't know." This again demonstrates the lackadaisical customer service and response style of the management to renters' concerns since they obviously can't be bothered to do follow-up, act in an expedient manner, or offer alternative solutions. And if you choose to workout in the gym, you can also never be sure whether the T.V. in there will be on or whether it'll be at the right volume. This is because there is no remote control in there for renters to use. You will have to call management (business hours are 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.) to have them come turn on the T.V. or adjust the volume for you. By the way, you can only watch CNN.

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