Solana vista is to me a pretty good place to live. It's fairly close to the beaches, it's close to Walmart, Publix and 7-11, and if you get into the car and drive for a couple of minutes you'll reach Manatee avenue with K-mart, Sweetbay, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks or whatever you might need.

The area isn't luxurious, but it's not too bad either; people who work with landscaping don't like the way it looks, me, I think that they need to have the grass cut a little bit more often during summertime, and that they need to spray the lawns for bugs more often than they do, other than that it looks fine to me. It has green lawns, palmtrees and hibiscuses, what more can you wish for'

It's nice for people with dogs; there are places to walk your dog that are well-lit and during the little over a year I've lived here, I've only met one hobo once, even though I often walk my dog late at night. There IS a pet fee. I think that both the one-time pet fee and pet rent are expensive, but that would of course depend on what you compare to; I had never even heard about pet fees and pet rents before I moved in here so I would find it expensive, lol. (I would wish that my pet fee paid for more trashcans around the area, and why not complementary rolls of doggie-bags strategically placed with the trash cans, like some of the other apartment complexes in Bradenton have, but I guess that one can't have it all.)

There is a clubhouse with a pooltable, a swimmingpool and a room with exercise equipment. There used to be a coffee machine, but that is no more.

The gates don't work. They've never worked, I don't think they'll ever work. Parking is so-so; you can rent a car port, compete with your neighbours for a good spot or be prepared to go for a little walk.

The people working here will remember your name and enough about you to make pleasant conversation; they'll make you feel at home. Sure, they forget things at times; they're human, but if you go to the clubhouse they'll give your doggie a cookie and take time to talk to you. If you have a problem that they can fix, they'll make an effort. The buildings are getting old and some apartments do have problems, but maintenance will do their best to help you out. I've had things break down, and if it's something that's at all reasonable to replace or fix, it's done within a couple of days.

There's allegedly pest control; during my time here, I've had a man come in to put little dots of something in the kitchen cupboards, that's it. This is my second apartment here, and no-one has ever sprayed either of them. I've battled ants, spiders and the occasional roach, and I do keep a clean house so it's not that I'm a bad house-keeper, lol.

My advice if you're thinking about moving here:
* There will be extra fees on top of the rent, like the trash-people mentioned in other review on this site, so make sure to take that into account.
* Get a two-bedroom apartment. I've had one of each, and the two-bedrooms seem much more solid than the one bedroom ones.
* Sound insulation is nil, so get an upstairs apartment.

Let me give an example of that last part. I live in a corner downstairs, so I only have one neighbour adjacent to my bedroom, and that apartment is occupied by a sister and brother in their 50's. I'm awake during daytime and sleep at night. That's the way my life works; I have to get up in the morning to go to work, period. My upstairs neighbours are awake at night and sleep in the day. At night, I wake up from music that sounds like it's being played in my bedroom; I've actually learned lyrics to songs I had never heard before from lying awake in my bed listening to the upstairs neighbour's music. She likes something that goes "Slowride, take it easy", various other rock music and Michael Jackson's Black or White. They're also surprisingly loud in other ways; if I know that I'm up at times when people around me sleep, I try to be quiet because that's the considerate thing to do. They slam doors and drawers in the middle of the night, start hammering nails at 5 AM, bang things, run the washing machine at two in the morning, yell at each other from one side of the apartment to the other, sometimes it sounds like they're dragging the furniture around and so on.

I tried to be a good neighbour and talk to them about it. The first time, she told me to buy earplugs. The second time, she told me that if I don't like it, I can move, and that either way, I should leave them alone. That ticked me off; I'm pretty quiet myself, so I complained to the office. During the last few days, the music is on lower volume; I still wake up from it, but I can't sing along to it any longer if I don't already know the lyrics, and they're still banging and slamming stuff all night, every night. The next time I wake from music loud enough to be in my apartment, I'm calling the police.

Don't get me wrong; there are lots of really nice people living here. But if you get an upstairs apartment, you don't run the same risk of having to hear the neighbours in case they're bad!

To sum it up; mostly good. It's been getting better and better, the community has improved lots since Dennis (community manager) started working here, and if my upstairs neighbours ever move and leave room for someone that just has screaming babies or something, I'll be perfectly happy!

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/01/2009
This person is 100% correct about everything! Sounds like they're talking about my upstairs neighbor! Believe it or not- the gates did work about 3 years ago- but some dumb ass' kept breaking it and I assume it was costing too much money to repair every other week so the office figured, "Screw it! We'll just leave it open!"

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