I must preface this to say that I'm not the type of person to write these kind of reviews. I've always taken the reviews on sites like this with a grain of salt realizing that most of the people who take the time to write a review probably had an exceptionally bad experience that isn't necessarily the norm. But, given what I've gone through in the past few months, I'm so fed up, I feel the need to warn others.
Generally I think I'm pretty easy to please as far as apartment living goes, as long as my basic needs are met, I don't really have much of a problem. I have lived here a little over 2 years now, and I will say for at least the first half of living here, it wasn't so bad. We hadn't had much interaction with management since we hadn't had any major maintenance issues, and crime seemed to be under control. Then, out of the blue, we started having issues like crazy. It started when there was a leak in our air conditioning that caused the carpet to become sopping wet outside the door to my room. The maintenance man came in a few days and fixed the leak, but it took nearly a month to get them to replace the carpet where the leak occurred. We called multiple times a week to check on it, and were constantly told it would be taken care of soon. I let them slide on this one, but that was only the beginning. A month later our dishwasher broke, and it took 2 weeks before it was fixed. I found that to just be totally unacceptable, and at this point was starting to get frustrated.
The worst feature of our apartment complex has always been the parking garage. Ever since we moved in, I've been waiting for the day that the thing collapses; it might possibly be the most poorly made structure I've ever seen. Anytime I have more than 2 people in my car, it bottoms out on the ramp as I go up or down each level. I can't even imagine what kind of structural damage that has done to my car. In addition, the whole garage shakes whenever a car drives over it. The gate is nearly ALWAYS broken. A few months ago, a moving truck ran over our call box, causing our "security" gate to be open for over a MONTH. One night FIFTEEN cars were broken into in our parking garage. But rather than fix the gate, our apartment decided to hire about 15 laborers to paint the parking garage from one shade of off-white to another, and then called this an "upgrade." While this painting occurred for over a month, parking was a total free for all with various levels of the garage being closed at various times. Then they told us that because of these "upgrades" they had to reassign parking spaces. My roommate and I had moved into the complex in large part because of the covered parking, as that was something that was a must have for us. In fact, we had insisted upon this before we would sign the lease to move in, so we were assured 2 covered spaces. When the leasing office first mentioned they would be reassigning spots, we IMMEDIATELY told the office staff that we really would like to keep covered parking spots, even if it meant parking on less convenient levels of the parking garage for us. As 95% of our parking garage is covered, we did not think this would be a problem. Yet, somehow when we were assigned our spots, we received not one, but TWO uncovered spots. They told us they had to be "fair," though I could not understand how giving us both uncovered spots while most other apartments had 2 covered spots was fair. We told them as two young girls who often return home late at night during some times of the year (we work in a seasonal job, we didn't feel comfortable with uncovered parking, especially given the level of recent break ins, and that if we could not get our spots changed we would not be renewing our lease. We were told there was nothing they could do and therefore we turned in our 60 day notice and I signed a new lease elsewhere. We ended up speaking with the Ventura Property management company that owns the complex, and the woman agreed with us that keeping our spots was not an unreasonable request. Fed up and already planning on getting out of this place, we did not renew our lease even with our parking spots changed. They were trying to charge us increased rent even though it has gone downhill so much, which is almost laughable. I know that there are at least 14 apartments that are moving out around the same time as we are. They have made multiple attempts to try to get us to stay including someone from the property management group calling me last week to see what she could do to get us to stay. This tells me they must be in some serious trouble. Maybe they will actually start changing some things around here so they can keep their "valued" residents, rather than beg them to stay when they inevitably decide to move out.
As a side note, I was locked out of my apartment complex this morning. I got home from a weekend out of town and they had changed the door code with only a 1 day notice on our doors. I got to the door of my complex with 3 giant bags in hand to see a note on the outside door that said we had to go to the leasing office and show picture ID to get the new code. Angrily, I took the bags back to my car, drove down to the leasing office, to realize it would be closed for a few more hours. I just love the geniuses who run this place, of course there is no POSSIBLE way that anyone could want to get into their apartment at a time that was NOT during leasing office hours! What if I had gotten home at midnight last night to be locked out of my apartment for the entire night'' The incompetence still amazes me, even after all this time...
Get me OUTTA here...

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/21/2008
I have to totally agree with everything you said and I am SO happy someone is telling the truth about this complex. They try to "sugar coat" all of the problems that have been and are STILL occurring with promises that they will be fixed and that they have made changes that will better the community. This place has been a total disappointment from what I was told upon visiting and signing the lease! The "upgraded" parking is a major joke! 2 months for a spray paint job? And the spot numbers weren't even repainted, just the tin roof and sides! There are never any available parking spaces for any guests in the visitor parking. Maintenance requests go unanswered for far too long and you do have to call numorous times to get anything accomplished. The business and fitness center are both finally open but with limited hours, which were 24 hours upon moving in and was one of many reasons for moving here. They finally decide to change the door codes with such a short notice, which anyone can give out to their friends, and I'm sure you weren't the only person locked out! The gates are a major disappointment as they almost never work correctly and are left open more times then I can count. They need to stop worrying about their little "Happy Hour" drunken fests with the guests and put that money to better use for our community! It's a nice thought, but how about fixing up the place and making it ALL that you promise instead of getting drunk with the residents and ignoring the issues?! I wouldn't recommend this place to anyone when I have seen how frustrating it is to live here and all of the other choices out there.
From: fabulouspm	Date: 10/14/2008
I have worked at this property for the past two years and yes there have been some changes and as always the main focus is what is best for the overall Community. The parking deck painting was in need of improvement and alot of the issues pertaining to the parking deck have now been fixed. The resident's were notified that the parking spaces were going to be assigned to make it more convenient for everyone. When the spaces were assigned originally all the spaces were not accounted for. Now every single space is correct for each apartment. Any maintenance requests that are not taken care of right away the resident's can feel free to email or call me so that I can ensure that the issues are resolved. The gate that was hit by the moving truck was leveled completely and an entire new system had to be installed along with a new memory chip. We had to leave the gate open until everyone was reinstalled in the computer. When the door code was changed instructions were left with the courtesy officer for after hours calls so that our resident's would be able to gain access to their home if that hadn't gotten the note on their door. In addition to working here I gladly call this community home. I have an open door policy with all of the resident's and welcome any suggestions that would make them love living here even more. We value all of our residents and it is our desire that you reside with us for many years to come. We will certainly always try to encourage you to remain a part of our community. Erin Steele

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