I've lived here for half a year. It's one of the best apartments I've lived in, albeit not at the greatest (or worst) price.

** The grounds are always well-kept. Most of the grounds are also well lit at night.
** I've spoken with a few of my neighbors, and they seem nice.
** The walls are off-white (not manila, but not quite white either), and the living room walls have crown molding (although, in our floor plan, the crown molding stops short of completely wrapping on one side for whatever reason).
** Most of the staff is extremely average, compared to the Equity property I lived at previously (Arden Villas). Things generally get taken care of, which is what matters. Regardless of what other people may think, if you pay your bills and you're not attempting to be a thorn in their side, it seems Equity's staff is leaps and bounds better than the staff at many other non-Equity properties. I plan on living in Equity properties until I leave this area or apartments altogether.
** The floor plans are nice, compared to most other floor plans in this area, but you will sacrifice some square footage.
** The patios are the largest I've seen in this area (UCF area); a couple of the floor plans have incredibly large patios (to the point where you would feel like you're losing potential living room square footage).
** The office has a pretty good movie selection, but you can only check them out for one night, and if you fail to return it you will be charged a painful fee (I think something like $5 to $7 each day).

Additional perks:
** This place offers recycling! Finally! This is incredibly hard to find in apartment communities around here, in my experience.
** The appliances are new enough to still work just fine.
** Very close to UCF, Publix, Neighborhood Walmart; walking distance to Hess Express
** There is a UCF shuttle stop across the street (within walking distance) at the "Riverwind" community
** There is a full blown movie theater in the main office that you can use to watch cable TV or DVDs
** The gym (clean and decent to my standards) is now open for 24/7 access with your key card
** There is a huge summer kitchen that you can use for parties (although the sign warns 2 guests per apartment, or something absurd like that)
** A real internet and cable service provider! Bright House Networks is (surprisingly, seeing how they seem to be involved with UCF) hard to come by when renting in the UCF area; BHN is also the best provider in the area. About $115 each month for fully blown internet (15 Mbps down burstable to 20 Mbps down; 2 Mbps up) and the typical digital cable package. The internet alone is worth it, coming from the other terrible providers in this area (to name a few: Pavlov Media, Bellsouth, Verizon and any other DSL provider).

Now, the down sides:
** FIRST AND FOREMOST: YOU ARE ONLY PERMITTED TWO CARS IN THE PARKING LOT PER APARTMENT (by the office's rules, at least)! I've never seen such a ridiculous requirement at any other community. It's counter-intuitive, since you can have up to 6 people on the lease. If you want to shell out some ridiculous price like $150 per month for a garage, you can have an additional car in that garage you're paying so dearly for; but, who wants to be locked into paying that for the remainder of a one year lease on top of the already expensive apartment'
** The side gate would function as a great entrance; unfortunately, it's only an exit gate.
** Speaking of gates, the gates are occasionally broken, but that's happened at every gated community I've lived in... too bad it's more or less impossible to find a non-gated apartment complex worth living in around here.
** Again, while on about gates: the front gate will only dial local numbers (unlike the last Equity property I was at in this area), which is bad for people who have non-local cell phone area codes. This means that you will have to tell your friends to follow someone in the gate, or let them in manually with your gate card.
** The water bill is absurd. Supposedly it's submetered, but I seriously question its accuracy. Our water bill has been averaging just shy of $70 over the past couple of months with just 3 people; for the first few months it averaged $40, which I also thought was high at the time. The water bill is bundled in with your rent as RUBS (ratio utility billing system), which gives even more reason to question it. I say this is high, coming from Arden Villas (not too far down the road), with 4 to 5 people costing $45 (average) to $60 (occasionally) with RUBS water billing.
** The walls are terribly thin, and probably not well insulated. You can hear everything around you (I live on the second floor, so this comment goes for same-floor neighbors, upstairs neighbors and downstairs neighbors). Our energy bill with the AC running at 78 to 80 degrees can easily reach $180 if we're not careful. We typically leave the AC off completely as much as possible (sweating or freezing) to save upwards of $50 each month.
** This is worth a second bullet-point: you can hear the person in the next apartment brushing their teeth/washing their hands in the morning through your bathroom mirror. I repeat: these walls are annoyingly thin.

Last, a couple finer points:
** The apartments come with a washer and dryer, which is not good if you already have a washer and dryer of your own. This would not matter, if they would offer to store their default washer and dryer units, but they don't offer that. (This place has a very sterile approach to dealing with things: they're not going to bend any rules for you--which is annoying in this case, the case with parking and a couple other cases that won't kill you but certainly won't please you either.)
** The staff is quick to point the finger. I guess this is a necessary evil. As I said earlier, the grounds are clean--and that statement includes hallways. This comes at a price... I've seen neighbors leave a trash bag out for an evening, here and there, and it's always been gone by the next day (I've never even noticed a smell); I'm okay with that, considering how far away the trash compactor is and that I've done it once or twice as well. The staff responded by placing a warning on everyone's door, saying the next time trash is found in front of your door you will be charged $25. Steep. The same type of thing happened when the people below me partied pretty loudly a couple of nights one week: a sign went out on everyone's door in this building saying that they need to keep their noise down. I'm sure someone complained about both of the scenarios, and it's good that the staff did something about it, I guess, but it's not like either happened frequently enough to warrant such serious warnings on *everyone's* doors.

I'll close in saying that this community is worth living in, but it's probably not the best Equity community in the area. Perhaps Grandeville across the street is nicer; I plan on investigating Grandeville a bit more, and possibly transferring to it near the end of my lease here, if I can find that it has thicker walls/better insulation and still offers Bright House. Equity apartments have been the best apartments that I've lived in, in this area, so I do plan on sticking with Equity, even if I do leave. I suggest giving them a chance, especially if you are disappointed with your current community's staff.

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