I lived at Spalding Gables for a year. A year was about all I could take. Before signing the lease, the office staff was helpful. After I signed, they felt more like prison wardens.

First and foremost, the gate system is a complete disaster. There's only one entrance for visitors and residents -- so if you get stuck behind Drunky McScrew attempting to call his half-baked buddy from the call box at 2AM, or an unlucky pizza guy, you've just got to wait in line before you can get home. It doesn't help that reading the screen on their box requires a government security clearance and x-ray vision. The screen is ALWAYS broken and impossible to read.

Secondly, on more than one occasion, I came home from work late at night only to find that power to the access box completely gone. Cars parked everywhere, because hey, nobody could swipe their card to get in. If you're unlucky enough to live there now, and you find this happening to you - take a flat-head screwdriver, pry the face off the metal box on the side of the card reader facing the street, and flip the emergency override switches. Each switch opens one gate permanently. I did this once or twice due to a malfunctioning box that was keeping people from getting home.

Next, the office staff seems inept. I told them many times that the lights in the 5000 building were all burning out. It took them 4 months to get around to replacing them.

I also had a neighbor who found it amusing to call the security officer (who looked drunk) on me for being a little bit noisy at 10:30PM on New Years Eve. Music people, nothing out of the ordinary.

Lots of "scheduled maintenance" in my apartment. Lots of nasty-sounding community-wide letters from the leasing office that almost sounded threatening in regards to pets and parking.

All in all, I felt like it was an effort to live there, and I don't know that I'd recommend this property to anybody else. Like another reviewer said, go down the street to a property that strives to excel beyond mediocre.

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