I have lived in several apartment communities and this by far is the worst. They take months to get to maintenance requests. When we moved in they took 4 months to address the issues with the apartment when we moved in. They said they were short staffed and they just hired more and it wouldn't happen again. We then waited 2 months for them to fix the closet (The shelves buckled), dishwasher and garbage disposal. The kitchen sink was pretty much inoperable. Once they did fix the issues they broke again within a week. It took an additional month for them to be remedied. They said that the gentleman that was doing their repairs had been fired and that ALL of his previous jobs had to be fixed. Also, the dryer vent had never been cleaned and when we moved in when notified them. They said after 4 months(on the list when we moved in) of waiting that it had been fixed. However, it had not. A short time later the dryer got so hot that it melted the lent trap and the dryer had to be replaced. Since being here I have met 2 or 3 different managers. They change the rent policy and never give notice, they hand out late notices when you were not late and threaten to send you to an attorney when you have proof you paid your entire rent and they just didn't put it in the system correctly. My children sleep in my husband and I's bedroom due to the horrible wind you can feel coming into their bedroom. We had to put blankets in the windows in the boy's bedroom as well as the living room sliding glass door. Due to the poor maintenance of the complex the appliances are falling apart. The refrigerator makes so much noise that we have to turn our television up to hear over it. The filter cover for the a/c is falling off the ceiling due to the maintenance crew not putting it back up correctly.
The staff(all but one) has been disrespectful and rude. When asked for them to follow up on maintenance requests they say "We will get to it eventually, or it is on our list. Your just gonna have to be patient." You can hear your neighbor's every move. The grounds are not kept well. The non-existent pathway leading from our stairs to the parking lot is grass and mud. There is also a random pipe protruding from the ground. They do not shovel the stairs when it snows so therefore it is very dangerous to descend the stairs after a heavy snow. They also proposition the residents to shovel paths. They allow residents to leave kegs on their front porch. Overall my family was VERY dissatisfied with the service, maintenance, as well as the construction of the apartments. We will never recommend this property to anyone!

User Responses
From: DRocKeR	Date: 04/17/2009
Wow, I hope you signed a short lease LOL. I lived in The Orchards from Oct - Dec. 2008 and while I would hardly say that they are 'The Worst Possible Apartments,' your review is actually pretty credible and I for the most part I find myself agreeing with you. Personally speaking, I did not find my stay at the Orchards that horrendous, but there is no doubt that the maintenance just sucks (or at least it did toward the end of our 3-month lease). When we first moved in we had issues with our central air (it wouldn't even come on). Turns out some vital piece was missing and it likely got swapped into a different apartment. But maintenance responded to that call, our first day in the apartment, in a matter of hours. While imcompetent to some degree, they had it fixed the same day we made the call. But after that the response time became progressively worse and toward the end of our lease I had pretty much given up on even counting on them responding to a call. I probably made 3 - 4 maintenance requests in the 3 1/2 months we were there. Some were similar to what you mentioned (sink, dishwasher) and after a day or so of waiting I would just go at it myself and fix it (it was never anything too big, just like a clogged drain so I would just have to remove a pipe and then replace it, so no big deal). Then after a month or so the front office would call to Follow-Up on the request, LOL. I'd say 'no, they never even came, but it's cool.. it's fixed now.' On the other hand, though some were just kind of cold, management was generally very nice to me and I never had draft issues like you said in you kids' rooms. HOWEVER, one of the things that bothered me most about our apartment is that in our second (guest) bathroom, somehow cigarette smoke would leak in. Don't know if it was from the airducts or what, but one or more of our neighbors must've smoked like a chimney because from time to time at night it would just stink and I'd have to keep the bathroom doors closed with the bathroom fan on. So that definitely bothered me. While imcompetent to a large degree, management didn't really bother me. I did receive a few weird notices that gave little time to act but nothing like late rent problems like you said. I can definitely see how a lot of the units could be falling apart due to the crappy maintenance over the years. Our unit was in pretty descent shape and neighbors never bothered us. If you're going to move anywhere, you should of course check out the unit you are moving into first. You wouldn't buy a car without test driving it, right? Of course I understand that you can't predict everything by just taking a tour of the place, but if you look at the unit and are ok with it's condition enough to rent the place then you can't complain TOO much 6 months down the road. I can vouch for what you're saying but I also think you're being a little nitpicky. Yes, the maintenance sucks in just about every sense, or at least they did, but I don't think that that adds up to Worst Apartments ever. There is some good that cancels out some of the bad.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/19/2009
We were moving from out of state and were unable to look at the apartments. I have lived in 6 different apartment communities and this is by far the worst. When the sink broke it was because of the garbage disposal went out and needed to be replaced and when that broke it caused the rest of the issues. And my husband is not handy and can not fix anything, usually he makes things worse. After moving in we were then told that there were probably gonna be issues from one of the neighbors due to the fact that the apartments had flooded previous to us moving in. I think that having a place to live that is FULLY functioning for as much as we are paying isn't too much to ask. And the only polite staff I encountered while living here is Thelma. She is awesome. And I can honestly say that the only positive thing about the house is the size of the bathroom. We are on our last month here and still have 3 maintenance requests that have not been filled and have been outstanding for 3 months.

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