so... first of all, it's a lovely little area, lots of huge trees and squirrels and some wannabe nice landscaping. basically, if it was better cared for someone could be charging way more than $500/month.
buuuut barbara is very difficult to deal with and will screw you over in any way she can. the apartments are really old and musty smelling, but set up nicely and many have new appliances.
there is plenty of parking, the neighbors are not terrible-- that area of town has been getting less ghetto the past few years, and the apt complex is trying to "weed out the trouble makers." just lock your doors (car and apartment).. make friends, you'll be fine.
the maintenance guy (tom) tries to do what he can to keep up with everyone's requests, but he is the only maintenance guy for ALL of those buildings... which is ridiculous and barbara's doing. it's not realy loud at all.. there are noisy cars sometimes and you can hear people shutting doors and talking outside, but what do you expect when youre living that close to other people'
one of my biggest issues was that the nice little outdoor pool was never opened this year. when we asked about it, they said that there was a problem with it and they would get to it later... hmm... it's december now... i've still never been in it.
also, about 3 months ago our ceiling fell in... like i said these buildings are OLD.. they said they'd just patch it up for us, but we then noticed the nasty moldy boards in the ceiling and said we wanted a new apartment or we'd take legal action (mold is no joke). barbara immediately moved us after that.. so basically, you can probably get what you want if you can back it up with some kind of law or regulation, because she definitely wants publicity and legality issues out of the picture.
SO pretty much, you have to weigh your pros and cons. it's a very convenient location, good layout in the apartments, pretty cheap for the amount of space, good parking, weird wall gas heaters get the whole apt hot in about 3 minutes flat :)
BUT bad management, old (risky) buildings, window a/c doesnt get bedroom cool, bad maintenance, in champaign's "ghetto" (which really is NOT that bad).
so it's a great place to live, you just have to know how to work them to get what you want.. and pray there are no major maintenance problems. :-)

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