The apartment looks really nice, right' But looks aren't all of what you get with the Oaks....First off, the parents let there kids run rampid...(not all but most)and I remember within one month I got 3 little postings on my door from management asking that parents please tell the children to stay out of the ponds....then please tell them to not torment the geese...then I got a warning from management telling us that some kids were running around and peeling the registration stickers off of car tags! I would come home and find kids sitting on my car! And trust me I didn't ask them "please get off", I demanded that they remove their butts from the hood of my car!

As for the actaul apartments...you can find apartments for cheaper, with thicker walls and better management, elsewhere. I could hear the conversations people were having above me sometimes! Of course it was murmered...but they weren't yelling either. And you are going to want to get a washer and dryer.

The dryers they have never dry anything completely, we always had to lay our clothes out to dry. You can only completely dry about a 1/4 load. I've never seen this before really, but you have a "Laundry card" that you have to refill or whatnot and this must be done during office hours, within the office on a machine. These machines won't take quaters, so if you run low on the card on a sunday afternoon... you won't be doing any laundry! (I'm not cheap, but 75 cents a load for a dryer that doesn't dry...isn't worth it) and apparantly everyone in the complex uses the laundry facility, so expect to just sit in the heat and wait for a washer to get done after 30 minutes so you can claim it as soon as someone elses laundry is finished.

And don't expect to have anywhere to park if you get home after 6pm.

And yes, those ponds are gorgeous right' Well not in Jacksonville heat, because no amount of beauty can cover the overwhelming stinch of duck and geese crap. Oh and be prepared for when it's nice outside..all the kids and drunk teens like to park their happy asses right in the little areas where your mailboxes are, so don't expect them to move their lawn chairs for you so you can get your mail...you'll just get scowled at.

Along, with of course the alge filled ponds. It's just sooooo quaint! It looks nice, but it's a WHOLE lot different once you actaully spend a night/day there and once the management already has your money (and has "lost" your file, HA!) Just read most of the reviews from people who have actaully LIVED there, because I believe that people must be pretty upset to sit down and write a review about something.

So those problems weren't all that happened...within 2 months me and my husband were robbed, and even the police said that it was someone who lived there and was watching my schedule (my husband was deployed at the time so that was terrifying....the robber had popped open the lose window...which I had complained about.... and took a laptop, some chips, and some washing detergent (don't ask, I guess he was hungry') I reported it to the Oaks...I know they can't actaully "do" much..even though I HAD complained about the window...but they weren't even sympathetic!It's almost as if they went out of there way to say "we don't care either way what hapeens to you or your family"

And a week after that...a woman was held at gun point in the building right next to mine!The guy that saved her, worked with the Oaks, (he was a nice guy) took a gun from his apartment and got the guy to run off...But..the Oaks fired him for concealing a weapon even though he probably saved a women's life.

My husband happend to be redeploying soon there after, so we got out of the lease....Thank GOD! My husband spoke to a man there and he actaully told my husband and argued with him that just because he was being deployed doesn't mean he can be let free!!! But eventually after my husband ask to speak with someone else with atleast a partial brain, they told him that the first guy was wrong and that we could be let out of the lease and that we didn't owe a "move out fee" or anything since it was within 30 days. So we left thinking that everything was fine. We thought it was over.

Oh how wrong we were.

I know you may know this...but always save paperwork...even if it's a year afterwards. Because there are people in the world who will deliberately try to screw you over.
So 5 months from that we got a call from a collections agency stating that we owe the Oaks around $500 for a late move out fee.They didin't even try to contact us! We were in utter shock!

They just sat a collections agency after us....and me and my husband have great credit and we weren't about to let this incident ruin us, so of course, we had to pay them. I'm not going to lie, I was livid. I called the Oaks and they kept telling me that they would "look into it" and told me to call back the next day...I called back, they had no answer, asked me to call back in a week...I called back, and they still didn't have an answer. Time went on, the collections agency took our money and I finally spoke with another woman and she said that they had "lost or missplaced" my file and that she would have to come in on her "day off" to look for it. Trying to make me feel "sorry" for her.(which why would I care...that's her job! correct' and this is my money! and it's her dumbass employees who lost my husband's and my file!) Well she still couldn't find our file that they had lost and she said that it was just at "corporate somewhere".
Long story, but in the end, now that I think I've annoyed the piss out of them for an answer, I should be gettting HALF of my refund back because they say that we didn't give 30 days notice...just 26 days (which I know for a fact we did give actaully 31 days notice..but being that it was 5 months ago...I threw out the papers and have no proof now...learning experience)I really don't know how they have proof since they lost our file to begin with. I asked them "does it really matter how many days though since my husbnad was deployed...I mean sometimes the military doesn't give "30 days" notice'"

I got two answers....one was "no" and one was "yes...I don't know WHO told you no..but it was no one that is working here"...but then again they don't know what their own policies are anyway since they can't tackle the daunting task of filing paperwork correctly. We all know that takes a doctorate degree, right'lol
All in all...the Oaks management needs to get their crap together and have a meeting with their employees over the rules and regulations. They fired the one guy there that was decent. Save yourself a LOT of heartache and don't live here. As for my husband and myself...we're expecting a half refund in 4 weeks,(or so that is what I am told) and I'm making them send me a letter stating that we don't owe the Oaks a damn thing anymore because I don't want another call from them saying 6 months from now that "we owe them blah blah blah for something else" they conjured up.

I'm sorry that was long-winded, but I guess I just had a lot to say :)I hope this was helpful, good luck!



Oh, and as an add on....it's been 6 weeks since I was told I would get a partial refund within FOUR weeks...so my hassle hasn't ended yet since me and my husband lived there over 9 MONTHS AGO! So, yet again, I have to call them and find out what has been misplaced THIS time, and how many more times I have to call them to make them stick to their word. As SOON as I have to move back to Jacksonville when my husband returns, I have an attorney on base to fix this, since all my proof is in a u-haul.

Oh, it's not over yet >)

User Responses
From: SueSDralle	Date: 09/19/2008
Concur 100% with EVERYTHING you stated. I moved out 28 August 08 and have still not gotten any part of my deposit back yet. I'm also military and was robbed TWICE and when I went to the management they as well acted as if it did not phase them. I'm still battling with USAA to get this resolved. I was also told that people were watching my work schedule but if their so called "security" would be doing their job maybe some of the crime would go down. This place is definitly deceiving and nothing but a crime infested / unprofessional staffing place to call home!

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