If you are reading this, because you are considering moving to Castle Rock, I'd like to say 2 things. First of all, Castle Rock is a great town and is on its way to becoming a larger metropolitan city that still holds on to its small town roots.

Second, I would urge anyone considering moving into Bethany Group's Rolling Hills to RECONSIDER! Do not move here! Do not, do not, do not! Unless you want nothing but headaches, problems and issues to deal with.

I've lived at Rolling Hills for about 3 years. The apartments were originally owned (when I first arrived) by Madison Group, which did not want to invest any money into maintenance or upkeep of the apartments. Thus the rents stayed lowed compared to other places. However, Madison had some of the nicest customer service people ever.

Recently Bethany Group purchased the apartments and customer service has plummeted and vacancy rates are soaring. They have been trying to fix the place up, however there are some serious problems which force me to not recommend this place to anyone. Horribly poor customer service, missing gas statements for 4 months and a host of other issues are leading reasons why residents here are leaving in droves!

I've talked with 6 other residents who have moved out or are in the process of moving out, (myself makes 7) who are fed up with the horrible customer service and treatment by the Rolling Hills Bethany Group Management Staff. As I traveled around looking at other apartments, 2 apartment managers told me that they've had numerous residents from Rolling Hills, recently looking to move out because of horrible customer service and rate increases that are unjustified for the properties they live in. Another apartment manager mentioned that one man from Michigan, moved out to Rolling Hills and when he arrived, was told by the Rolling Hills, Bethany staff that his apartment would not be ready for another 10 days and there was nothing they could do. He got so ticked off at the horrible customer service, he went straight over to another complex and signed a lease with them , sight unseen.

While Madison Group did not want to spend any money, Their apartment manager was one of the nicest people I've ever worked with. On the other hand, Bethany Group's staff is curt, rude, inconsiderate to deal with. They lost my check 1 month, and then accused me of not paying rent (even after I presented them my carbon copy). I had to cancel that check. They also canceled credit card payments (no doubt, due to the credit card fees charged), but without notifying anyone in advance. I had been paying by credit card for a year, so I was SOL until I ordered more checks (which I normally don't use).

Bethany Group / Rolling Hills does not communicate with its residents at all and they are horribly unorganized. You will come home and find notices that you still owe them money, even after paying your rent on time. This is due to clerical-staff errors. They've already been through a number of management staff and maintenance staff in the last 8 months because they cannot keep decent workers on board.

They are painting, and literally tore down tenant's satellite dishes without warning and at the resident's own costs during the re-painting. They towed cars without warning, when they re-surfaced the blacktop parking lot, yet didn't tell anyone that they were doing this, (so they just towed the cars out of the way - at the owner's expense. (Bethany is claiming that they sent out memos, but this has been spotty. It seems that "some" residents get the notices, but not everyone. Bizzarre''''

The stories about the pool and hot-tub from previous posters are true. The pool was vandalized by a number of hoodlums and remained closed for quite awhile. Then some kids defecated in the pool and/or the hot tub and they had to close it down to clean it up. Then they didn't clean the pool routinely, (or have it cleaned and maintained professionally) and it became so cloudy that the health department shut the pool down for being hazardous. This all happened this summer of 2007. In 2006, the pool was shut for most of the summer due to leaks and other damage.

The trash bins are always overflowing and disgusting. It looks like a 3rd world backdrop from some charity video with all the trash floating around. Supposedly they are going to replace these bins soon to make them look nicer, so we'll see.

The exercise room is a joke and is in the basement in a tiny room off of the washer/dryer room in the basement. No woman in her right mind would ever consider using that room, and even the wash room itself is sketchy because it's so out of site.

But my largest complaints about the complex are the poor customer service, that will leave you helpless, their unorganized ways of management and that the apartments themselves are seriously run down. They have not been rehabbed for years and it shows. Corner wall edges are damaged, floor trim pulls out of the wall easily; appliances break all the time. The air-conditioners rattle and the heat is not consistent. Worst is the bug problem. These apartments are overrun with millipedes and insects of all kinds. It's absolutely gross.

I've had a bug infestation going on since I've lived here and I am obsessively-compulsively clean. I've been asking the office repeatedly for a month to get an exterminator out here, but they say that he only comes out every 3rd week! Well, my bugs don't wait every 3rd week to arrive. I have millipedes crawling around on my carpet, and other small bugs all the time. However, I have not seen roaches, so that's good. I ended up spending $70 on my own bug spray and bug granules to spread around the apartment inside and out to finally put an end to the bug problem.

There are many areas in the complex here that are not well lit and it seems dangerous. A neighbor reported seeing a male in his 20s staring into my apartment one night and chased him off. I filed a police report, but nothing ever came of it.

There are tennis courts here, but rumor has it that the courts will be ripped up to make a dog run park in the complex. This is gross because the staff are notorious for not cleaning the complex up and now we'll have to smell dog@#^%@ all the time from people who don't clean up after their pets. That's another complaint. There are a lot of dog owners here who don't clean up after their pets and it's disgusting. Clean up is not enforced.

They just painted the apartments with no input from the tenants at all about color. Bethany Group painted them a poo-brown color. I'm not joking; they are poo-brown colored. It's nasty.

The appliances as I mentioned and the blinds and the windows are all worn down and/or broken. The Bethany group has implied that they are replacing appliances, but from what I hear, not windows - so the bugs getting in through missing screens will still be a problem.

I suspect that Bethany will definitely be wanting to raise rates, yet all they are doing is slapping on some paint, but not really rehabbing anything major, like seams, joints, windows, etc. that could help to control the bug problems. UPDATE - Sure enough, 30 days before my lease was up - Bethany Group gave me a lease renewal form with a rate increase of $200 per month and they will only do 6 month leases for the next 2 years so they can boot you out during their remodel as necessary. That was the final straw that forced me to leave. When I emailed the general manager of the properties here (Brooke) I never got a response from her trying to entice me to stay here. The corporate office told me the same thing. They basically said for me to "deal with it" or leave. So I'm leaving.

Another pitiful issue that occurred regards the gas bills. In June, Bethany Group stopped billing us for gas. They said in a hastily written memo that a new group would be billing residents for gas (The memo said neither who the new company was, nor when the billing would start and requests at the office were met with a "I don't know " response.) Well, June came and went, July passed by, August, and September and GUESS WHAT! Residents never got gas bills for those 4 months! Can you imagine how incompetent an apartment manager is to let billing for gas go undone for 4 months' WOW! So just 3 days ago, all the residents got invoices on their door for the months of June and July for Gas, and next month, we'll get August and September. Ignorant, pathetic and unorganized. Horrible customer Service.

Finally, comments from other residents about some of the ridiculous requests that management has come up with - regarding increasing your renter's insurance coverage are true. First of all, what business is it of theirs if you insure your goods or not' And why are they dictating what amount to maintain' It's none of their business, nor do they have any legal right to require you to maintain renters insurance. I suspect that there's an ulterior motive here that they're not telling us.

ALL PROSPECTIVE RENTERS - consider yourself forewarned. Move here and you will be incredibly unhappy. Until Bethany Group came in, residents had been here for years. The place wasn't the best, but customer service was top notch. With Bethany Group, residents are leaving in droves - very angry and vowing to tell as many people as they can about this crummy place.

I have found a new place to live and am ready to move on. December, 2007 I move out. If there was ever a reason to buy a house, this is it! Rolling Hills and Bethany Group are synonymous with slumlords and incompetent morons. It's a dump.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/09/2007
Dang! I'm surprised you haven't just walked out on the lease, you're obviously extremely unhappy with the new management. Guess I bailed at the perfect time, just as the new bozos were taking over, after over three years of a pretty satisfied experience at Rolling Hills. Seems the new regime didn't handle the changes well, but are you seriously suggesting that the property owners should have asked the RENTERS what flipping color they were painting the complex? Honestly, that is a very cheeky assumption. However, I understand your points about the gas bill screw-ups, the punks from the subdivision fouling the pool, hot tub (AND the sauna, which was operable until the first incident about three months after I moved in and the fat, lazy manager didn't give a flip to have it cleaned out nor expel the subdivision kids from the pool, even during business hours). It is not the buildings, nor the landscape, it is the management, which a previous posting indicates has been extremely variable with MULTIPLE owners over the past four years. This little complex, a quiet, comfortable place, has obviously been screwed over by lowball artists who maximize their profit margins whilst prising the rents up and scrimping on maintenance and upkeep. Sad to see, but then again, you know, you are RENTING. You only RENT the place, you can't dictate to the landlord what you will accept except at lease time, then you have the right to tell them to go blow themselves if you don't like their terms. So, good luck at the new place, maybe the new managers will get their act together and start running the place right. BTW, in over three years, my rent went up $15 a month... Makes all the more sense to look at forums like this one when looking at a new place to rent. I did, both when I moved into Rolling Hills and when I moved to the new (huge upgrade) place, and got soem invaluable insights into what I was getting into at the time. However, since the new lease on August 2, the new complex has had two separate owners with a change in the way gas bills are handled. I guess variability is not found solely at Rolling Hills, even if you pay more...

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