Apologize for the long read. I have lived in 7 apartment communities around Vista in the past 5 years, and I must say that Waterleaf is the worst experience I've had dealing with the management and services to the tenants, bar none. Where to begin...
I moved there in 2008 because I needed a bigger place with washer and drier hookups since I was moving in my parents who were losing their house. My father had also been fighting cancer for two years and he was in an extremely delicate state (he passed away last November), and I made my situation very clear to the management that I needed a quiet place that was clean and comfortable since I was moving in my parents. I got the complete opposite. Move-in day comes around, I pick up my keys, and my apartment was located in the middle of two buildings full of people that were noisy and liked to party a lot...beer cans in the patio, cigarrete butts, loud television sports watching, you name it. The unit itself looked as though someone just barely moved out and didn't bother to clean anything before they left. So I told the management I wanted another unit. They were about to give me a second unit, but one of them people figured out that it was already promised to a different prospective tenant, so they switched me to a third one, pushing back my move-in date even further. I moved in, and did a walkthrough inspection (by myself) full of discrepancies that they never bothered to fix entirely (missing plumbing, dirty carpet, mold in bathtub, garbage disposal not working, etc etc etc). Oh, and the move-in special of $900 that I was promised upon my move-in' They took it away, saying that it was only good for the initial date I was supposed to move in (even thought the unit wasn't ready and they completely screwed up the move-in process for me). I already had my parents in town so I said screw it, I'm in a desperate situation and took the deal (stupidly, looking back at it now). I only ended up getting a special of about $250 taken off my move-in cost, and the rest they pretty much just said "too bad." So I had to dish out $650 out of pocket that I wasn't expecting to spend.
Painful move-in already done, I spent weeks on end trying to get them to fix all the discrepancies. It wasn't the maintenance guys' fault either because they always did what they were told...so you guessed right, management never wrote down or passed any information to them.
The rest is as everyone else has posted on these reviews, inflated water/sewage costs, overpriced rent for the services rendered, the grass always looked like it was cut with an axe. I could never even let my daughter go out and play around in the grass because of all the dog poop everywhere, as they never really enforced their pet policies. Neighborhood kids being extremely noisy at night, drunken fights going on, intermittent street lighting that never truly made you feel safe. Thank God nobody stole my Corvette, reading some of the stories people had to share here.
So my father passed away in November and I notified the management personally...ABOUT 4 TIMES!!! I figured out when I moved out that they never changed my contract.
So later on towards the end of my lease, I get a notification letter asking if I wanted to renew my contract. Great! No way! Except they screwed up the date on that letter of when my lease expired. They wrote that I was supposed to move out the month before my leae actually expired. I know being of sound mind and judgement, I should've checked my own paperwork to see if the dates matched my contract, but with the recent passing of my father, you can imagine dealing with these incompetents is about the last thing on my mind. So I started looking for other apartments since I couldn't wait to move out, and I turned in my 30 day notice. Yeah, they called me about a week later...A WEEK!! saying "oh you turned in a 30 day notice to vacate, but your lease doesnt expire until next month. Are you breaking lease'" I had already found another great place and put in paperwork, but now I had to tell them that I couldn't move in because I still had another month at Waterleaf. Great. You'd expect management to not screw you over like this, and like I said maybe it was my fault for not checking when my contract ended, but you know I had a bit on my mind.
Thankfully, my lease came to an end. And as mentioned by other people here, once they know you're moving out, they COMPLETELY change their attitude towards you (not that it was great to begin with). No notification, no heads up or any contact with me whatsoever. I moved my things out, told them a day before that I was leaving, and they just didn't even seem to care. Alright, well not that I cared much for them either, but I asked if there was going to be a final walkthrough. They said they take care of that on their own, and I had to fight with one of the "agents" there for like 15 minutes to get somebody to do the inspection with me present. You can imagine that they'd probably mark down all kinds of random stuff to screw you out of your deposit. So they had me waiting for an hour for somebody to come and do the inspection, and I got tired of waiting so I went to the office. They hadn't told anybody that they were supposed to come and do my inspection, and they had 3 maintenance guys hanging out there in the office that could've done it for the past hour!!! Once the inspection was done, I was out of there and wanted nothing more to do with these people. Funny thing is, they didn't even ask me for a forwarding address so they can send my deposit, I had to call them twice to have them put it on file for whenever they feel like mailing it out. They said I should get it within 21 days of move out. It's been 19 and I'm sure I'm gonna keep waiting for a long time.

Bottom line, the apartments look great when you first visit, but the nightmare begins when you move in. To those that haven't had problems with your stay in this complex, you're the lucky few. I'm military, always paid rent on time, respectful tenant and neighbor, would never have problems with income as far as being secure, and they still managed to not value me as one of their tenants. Oh well, look elsewhere, this place ain't worth the "move in special" they promise you.

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