The website (at Hercules) for the apartments is very misleading and dishonest. The management at the apartments is also just as dishonest. I am a resident of the place and have lived there for a few months. This is a long review, but it is the truth and needs to be told. I read the reviews before I moved there but thought that, Oh, of course all the reviews are bad, who would write a review if they were pleased with the place' Management will probably tell you the same thing. Think about it though. How could a place have this many bad reviews and complaints with the Better Business Bureau' This is why.


I have taken snippets from claims the website makes about the ammenities and some claims the management has made to me when they sold me on the place. By the way, I moved here out of morbid curiosity and my morbid curiousity has been satiated.


1. High Speed Internet Access!! The website claims that there is internet there. Yes, there is internet, if you pay for it. I could say that there is internet anywhere if I was willing to pay to have my own internet connection set up. This is like me saying, "The dumpster behind the abortion clinic has internet!!" In other words, it is true if you pay to make it true. I think I beat this point up.


2. State of the art gym!! Almost every piece of equipment is broken, including treadmills and weight machines. The equipment was never state of the art, even when it was first released, because they all are generic and poorly constructed. If you took a time machine back to the 1950s and brought our gym, the people of that era would be unimpressed with the "State of the Art of Johnston Mills Lofts". On the tour of the apartments the sales lady will intentionally not take you to look at the gym.


3. Views of the River! There is a view of the river if you have that one apartment on the third floor on the east side of the apartment. All other apartments give you a view of a parking lot. So that it is true that one apartment out of 334 has a view of the river. For argument let's say 1% have a view of the river. 1% of the Americans diagnosed with AIDS are Asian. Using Johnston Mills Lofts logic we would have to say that all Asians have AIDS.


4. High above the flowing waters of the Chattahoochee River, this picturesque location is close to the Columbus Historic District and Central Business District. LIE! This location is not picturesque. The Chattahoochee is the worst river ever. It looks like the river from Charley and the Chocolate Factory but doesn't taste like chocolate. They'll mention the River Walk and how close it is to it. It is about a mile away but the name River Walk is misleading. It should be called River Run because that is what you will do when you stumble across a crack/meth head giving fellatio for crack/meth. If you do not have a concealed carry permit, you will not be River Walking. Also, it is not close enough to the Historic District or the Business District to walk there. You could, but you would need that concealed carry permit, a gang, and broad daylight. If you live here you will be surrounded by the projects and bums living in tents. Careful walking to your car because you may get hit with shrapnel coming from a meth lab exploding. Ok, this may not be exactly how it is and maybe even a little exaggerated, but if Johnston Mills Lofts can do it, why can't I'


5. Clothes care facility and dry cleaning. There is a coin laundromat here but no dry cleaning. Where do they get this crap'


6. Tennis courts. Yes, they said tennis courts, with an "s" as in plural. There's only one. I know I may seem picky, but they love to exaggerate. It is a common theme for them.


7. You electric bill will be ridiculous. Expect to pay up to $190 in the winter, unless you like to live comfortably, then it will be higher.


8. Rat and ant problems. I had an army of ants attack my kitchen when I first moved in. I used to hear them scurry in my a/c duct at night. It was not cool. I did report it management sent the maintenance over and had them removed. I haven't smelled anything yet, so I think they removed the corpses, which was impressive.


9. Noise travels extremely easily. All sex must be very, very quite unless you want your neighbors to know you are the man. All arguments with girlfriend must be just as quite unless you want your neighbors to know you are not the man. Sound travels faster than the rats in this place. It also sucks because people like to hang out and make a lot noise outside. You know, those kids with no parental supervision or just a group of drunken people.


10. You will have to drive to do anything. No more little strolls to the gas station to get a soda or walking to blockbuster.


11. Packages delivered to rental office are unsecure. Don't have anything nice shipped to your apartment. They put the packages in a closet in the rental office. Anyone can walk in and grab what they want. And if you go to work before 0830 and come back after 1730 you will never be able to get your package unless you take off work early. So you may have to wait till Saturday, but that increases the chances of your stuff getting stolen.


12. Weird smell in the apartments. Kind of like sour milk, and it isn't just because I'm dirty.


13. Gated community. About 30% of the time. Some a-hole always seems to run over the gate.


14. Planned social activities. My favorite lie. The only planned social activity here is the daily "Hide from your Creepy Neighbors Marathon". I did a sex offender search, but didn't find anyone who lives here. But that is just because you only have to register if you plan to be a permanent resident, i.e., buy a house. If you do not have a job and plenty activities to do in addition to your job, this place will suck the life out of you.


15. They say that they are 1.5 miles from an elementary school. That school is shut down, I think.


16. They accept credit cards to pay rent. They say that, but not really. They "have a person that does the credit card payments but she won't be here until the 3rd" which is after rent is due. If you try to pay early, "our system won't let us charge for this month yet."


17. This place is not haunted. To me that is a bad thing because that would be the one cool thing about this place. I was hoping to see the ghost of a girl who bled to death when her hand got caught in a cotton machine in the early 1900's, but I have not seen any. There should be ghosts here, given the history, but even they don't want to live here.


18. Racism. Ok, this was a cotton mill in Georgia. The cotton was produced by slaves and send here to be processed by slaves or people treated like slaves. Even after slavery was abolished, disenfranchised people still had to slave away at this cotton mill to barely subsist. Now it this whole area is sectioned off as projects and adjusted rate housing. Why' to compartmentalize and separate the ------ and other disenfranchised people. This is not a wholesome area to grow up in. There is no happiness or positive programs. It is just a suck hole designed by the government and rich corporations (Hercules) to keep the poor from the rest of the great city of Columbus.


19. The neighbors are generally dirty, don't police their own trash, and drive their motorcycles to their door (via your hallway/patio).


20. Playground. I get sad when I see kids playing in this playground. It is just one of those Fisher Price plastic, square things. There's a three foot slide and I think a little pull-up bar (one more than the gym). If you have two or more kids they will have to take turns playing on the playground.


21. Sports Bar. If you do decide to visit the apartments and go through the tour you may want something refreshing to eat and drink. It happens to be next to a building with a sign that says it is a sports bar. Don't bother going in. It is closed and it will never be open again. I think they put the sign there to make people think that there was life in the area.


I advise you to not move here and if you did, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. If you do, they will know what place you are talking about since many people have already complained. The management will tell you, "Oh, that was the old management; we got rid of them and really cleaned house." They may even attempt to appeal to your inner racist, "We use to have to let anyone who wanted to move in here, but now we have ways of keeping the bad people out." That was from a white woman.

The rent is cheap though. The management is actually pretty helpful.

User Responses
From: jmlRenter	Date: 03/18/2009
While your review was more entertaining than informative, you're not far from the reality. A few of the highlights from the 9 months we spent there: - Animal feces *everywhere*, even in the hallways. - My wife had chronic allergy symptoms as soon as she stepped into the apartment that didn't alleviate until after we moved. - NO AIRFLOW/VENTILATION in the appartments. - Early on my wife made the mistake of going for a walk by herself and ran back nearly in tears after several hooligans stopped their cars and demanded money. This was in broad daylight. Even together, we never went out a night. - Our dog's hair started to all fall out like he had cancer or something. He started bleeding from sores under his snout. This was not some old mutt, but a very healthy puppy less than 1 year old. And it wasn't just our dog. I noticed one of our neighbors dog had the same simptoms. My colleague at work who also used to live at JML reported the same thing. This is NO JOKE. There is definately something very toxic in the environment there. About a month after we moved out, our dogs hair all grew back and his energy improved 100%. - My car was vandalized repeatedly Responding to #19 above, people will drive their motorbikes to their doors because if they leave them in the parking lot the local scum will come with truck and pick it up and take it away. I'm not being funny here. This happened to one of my neighbors. I think about the only saving grace to living at JML is the location is near downtown, which is convenient only if you work there. There are some nice places to live in Columbus, but DO NOT LIVE IN THE CITY CORE. Its a dump infested with inbred delinquents. If you must live in Columbus live in one of the communities 15 min out of town.
From: leafbhs	Date: 03/18/2009
Love your post. I also live here and agree with almost everything you said. But I live on the 4th floor with a view and thankfully NO rats or ants! But the walls are thin, the gate is broken often, owners allow their dogs to pee in the hallways and isn't cleaned up for at least a whole day, the main elevator breaks often, most of the people are kinda nasty and if you have an animal, prepare to be stalked by the maintenance guy to your apt while he calls the office to see if you have paid your animal fee!!!
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/18/2009
i spent a few months living in the johnston hill apartments too. i think the above post exaggerated a lot of bad things. sounds like the guy was expecting a social life and maid service by moving into a big apartment complex. i would tell the loser to make his own effort to clean up after himself and make his own friends.
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/23/2009
GET A LIFE! Johnston Mill Lofts is a nice place to live. You must be a resident with lots of issues. It seems like what Im reading is a resident that has no life and no friends.
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/30/2009
Love it. I had a cousin that stayed here for a while and everytime I came over her hapartment it was clean quiet and secludeded. I never heard other people convos and never heard a rat or seen an ant. I like this place. I would most def stay here. Every time I ghot on the eevator it worked and I would go to the secon floor where she stayed with no problem. it was comfortable also.
From: Englishlover	Date: 04/13/2009
Either your keyboard is messed up or you are.
From: aerial165	Date: 05/24/2009
I have a sister thats stays at jml. everytime I go its quite and clean.I recently decided to move there.I would recomend it for anyone to stay there.
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/09/2009
Can I just say that no matter where you live ...if you live in 'income based housing' all these things are going to be a problem. Unless you pay to live in Greystone...don't expect high end living...

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