I was looking for a decent place with heat and hot water when I came upon this property.

PROS: Heat and hot water included. A/C unit in living room. Plentiful hot water. Washers and Dryers available in basement. Pet friendly - allows pets of all sizes for small one time pet fee. One month security deposit, first month free. Right off highway. Hardwood floors throughout. Decent closet space. Storage unit in basement. Garage parking available for extra $50/month. Park like setting. Nice brick exterior buildings. Most neighbors really nice and friendly and will say hello in parking lot.
To pet owners who don't pick up your dog's poo outside: Residents here are self-policing and take pride in a clean environment. Many non-dog-poo picking up residents found nicely packaged bags of their dogs offerings right on their car multiple times.

CONS:
Living room A/C units are old. Once they crap out they won't replace them.

SAFETY: Buildings are not secure. All tenants have same key to all foyers. All basements are interconnected and all residents have same key to get into any foyer area of all buildings. Many exterior/foyer doors are left propped open so easy for someone to sneak in a side door and come out in your building area. Gave me the heebie jeebies when I lived here.
It is not in the best area with a very high crime area (Spruce Street) just one street over. The actual grounds looked really nice and park-like and I was assured there was no crime that happened on these grounds (what property agent wouldn't say that''). Check the CT sexual offender list before moving in this area. This is like ground zero, maybe not in this complex but in the surrounding streets. So be careful if you have children or are single female.

NOISE: The walls are THIN!! There is NO soundproofing. I could hear my downstairs neighbors' conversation at 11:30pm at night and they were speaking at a NORMAL tone of voice. There was a garbage truck that would wake you up at 6AM pretty much three mornings a week right outside your window either hauling trash from this apartment complex or the school one street over. If you ever get a signnificant other over to this place, you might be too freaked out that your neighbors can hear every creak and moan to even have sex. If you're an exhibitionist or just want to inspire the ire of your neighbors with normal living noises or you like to eavesdrop...yeah, you can do all that here easily.

BATHROOMS: They redo bathrooms before you move in but the worksmanship can be slapdash. I heard other neighbors complain that when they moved in the bathtubs were full of mold and not cleaned. It is common sense for maintenance to clean out mold as it is a health hazard so should be eradicated before new tenants move in.

OFFICE STAFF: Only one staff person to take care of 56 units. Office staff blame maintenance, maintenance blames office and still nothing gets done and tenant gets the shaft in the end. The staff here can make you feel like you are being a severe nuisance any time you call for or follow up about maintenance. Oh, they are nice the first time you call and assure you that they will get to it. They just want to get you off the phone and out of their hair.

You will call to report something needs fixing, days, sometimes weeks will go by with no action. They tell you they will call you back but they rarely do. So when you call them back for a status and you are told they have much more important things to do. If you get insistent for some action, you might get attitude, excuses or even yelled at. When asked what should be an expected turn around time for maintenance, they won't tell you. If they do tell you, and you call them about the date coming and going with no action, they will have more excuses. You can't pin them down for any definite action or time frame. Sometimes they are quick sometimes they are not. They are just inconsistent and that's just a real pain.

Sweet as pie when they are showing you the place but once you sign the lease and pay the security deposit, whole other game my friends. I would not recommend this place unless you like having to take time out of your work day to deal with stupid repair crap that the staff should just take care of on their own without having to be policed.

PARKING: the parking is really tight and often there's barely any room to park. Potential nightmare in the winter when the snow comes and they want you to move your cars for them to plow. There is no place to move you car. There is no off street parking on Charter Oak Street unless you want to drive about .25 miles around the corner and park it on Main Street.

Laundry: you have washers and dryers in the basement. 1.75 to wash and 1.75 to dry. Ridiculously expensive especially because the washers are super small. Good luck trying to get in there anytime duriing the day between 7am-10pm though. Neighbors with 2 or 3 kids are constantly doing laundry and using other buildings laundry machines, too, since they have the same foyer key as you do and can access any basement space they want. I had to get my laundry in at 6am to get any loads done during the week.

STORAGE UNITS: provided in the basement. Chicken wire and 2x4 construction. Not policed, some don't have lights and flooding occurs. Get plastic storage crates, put items on pallets and don't leave anything valuable in there because they can easily be stolen (how easy is it to cut through chicken wire with just a pair of scissors') or damaged from winter and spring flooding. Since all tenants have same keys to foyers and all basements are joined and exterior doors are propped, very easy for people to scout the area and steal out of your storage unit or riff raff from Spruce Street to come in and make off with whatever they'd like to help themselves too.

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