Facts: My family and I are building a new home, and needed a place to stay while it was in progress, but did not want to sign a year's lease. Since we have pets, we needed a place that accepted them.

Pros: The apartment is located close to Boston and major highways, and they do allow pets. The apartment was generally clean upon our arrival, and the staff was helpful in taking out the old fridge so we could bring ours in. The apartment we're in has nice views, and the balconies are great to have. Staff is generally helpful in acknowledging complaints. They do allow short-term leases for people in situations like ours. The parking is free and is sufficient.

Cons: The apartment is located off of Rte 138, and that's the only way you can access it. So if there are traffic jams or construction, (which there are a lot of around here), it can take a LONG time to get in or out. There is also a major factory/complex across the street that creates a lot of traffic twice daily, despite their having a police officer on duty to regulate the traffic. The complex allows pets, but very few people here are considerate enough to clean up the grounds after them, or keep them leashed. We had a scooper outside many times, and the kids would take off with it. There are no elevators in the building, so if you're on the third floor, you have three flights of stairs to conquer with groceries or other parcels. The hallways are not well-heated nor cooled, so it's unpleasant when we have temperature extremes. We were told that this was a quiet building, but it's actually quite noisy. There are a lot of kids here who are left unsupervised at all hours. They crash through the halls in the early mornings and late nights, despite management's requests to parents to quiet them down. The older ones hang out outside without supervision, do not use the sidewalks, and purposefully stand in the way of oncoming cars. There are "gangs" of older kids here, and we've heard rumors of both drugs and prostitution being a problem here for many years. The kids have vandalized the property and frequently write vulgar terms on walls or doors. They eat in the halls and leave a mess of food and crumbs out there. We now have hot weather, and a serious bug problem, because the building is so poorly sealed. We have a parade of carpenter ants in the hall, as well as a variety of flying insects and spiders. Again, because the building is so poorly sealed, the odors from other apartments seep into ours frequently - such as bleach, very strong smells of ethnic cooking on early Sunday mornings, etc. The snow removal here this past winter was horrendous. They came so late that most of us had to dig out our own cars in the mornings before work. They hired inexperienced contractors, and a few of them bumped into and marked our cars up with their trucks. The management promised to compensate me for one of my car's damages, but they never got back to me on this. They came to shovel the walkways around 11-12 pm daily, and did not sand properly, so there was a lot of slipping. They piled the snow up behind the cars, so even when they did plow, you still had to dig out. One of our family members, and a fellow resident are handicapped. Management makes no accomodations for this, and the workers refused to help either of them dig out their cars or shovel the walks properly to prevent slipping. There was also a persistent problem over the winter with a light in the parking lot. It shut off constantly, and despite my and other residents' frequent service requests, it took over two months to fix this problem. This created a dangerous situation in the parking lot, esp with all of the ice, but the management didn't seem to care about the liability risk. Another issue has been the lack of hot water. It took several months for this problem to be corrected as well. We'd often have cold showers, and water from the sink faucets still fluctuate between hot and cold at random. Eventually we learned that they had something turned down in the central heater and some device needed replacement. We wonder how long it would have taken them to fix it if we weren't so persistent, and also wonder if they kept it turned down to save on operating costs, despite creating a potentially unsanitary condition (washing dishes and clothing in tepid water). The management has a rather dumb policy in regards to plumming help off-hours. If you have a two bedroom or three bedroom apartment with two baths, if one toilet becomes clogged (happens often - they are poor efficiency toilets and have broken several times) they will not come out to repair it if you have one working bathroom. This creates a major problem for people like ourselves who have medical problems and need the two baths which we're paying for, and also for larger families. As a final note, there have been several potentially dangerous residents and situations here. One man went after another resident with a knife about two weeks ago, after kicking someone's dog. The police were called, and management claimed to have followed up. We are also fortunate enough to live beside a known domestic abuser (the mother of the woman renting the apartment informed us of this and that he has violated his restraining order in the past) The man has been abusive to his young kids in my presence and often brings them home as late as midnight on school nights. I have reported this to both the police and management, neither of which have done anything about it.

SUMMARY: It's not the worst apartment complex in the world, but I'd think very carefully about recommending it to anyone, and would not return here again myself. I think that you have to weigh the pros and cons very carefully, and decide what's most important to you. If you want safety, comfort, quiet, and cleanliness, this is not the place for you. If you have pets or need a short-term lease, and can tolerate the many problems we have here, then you'll probably do ok.

User Responses
From: arboretumhell	Date: 11/24/2006
The articulate response given above is totally true, and all comes down to one thing - this place is a slum! It's filthy, dangerous, noisy, and is a rip-off.My vehicle has been damaged, my kids are afraid of the drones of big kids who hang out in gangs into the night all over the complex and make out, smoke, and fight, generally have no supervision. Fire alarms go off constantly, and my pet dog has been sick several times.i have heard similar from other pet-owning residents whose dogs have gotten sick. it seems that many of the uneducated, lazier residents buy their dogs from unprofessional sources, and fail to get htem medical care, and as the user above said, never cleans up after them, so other consciencious dog owners (and their dogs!) pay as a result. Its so true about the kids blocking the road - they practically refuse to move when you drive by, and people and kids play and park in the fire lanes all the time, blocking the road. my lease is almost up, I cant wait to escape from this dump!
From: YurIn4ItHeer	Date: 11/26/2006
Yes yes! I am a resident here to, while my house is being built, and it can't be done fast enough! The noise here is terrible, the groups of kids is daunting (they all stand in front of your car and stare at you) and the parking? well in the building next to ours, someone's DOORS was just stolen off his car in the middle of the night! the cops are always down here, call them to check the place out before renting and see what they tell you..I didn't listen to them and BOY I regret it! The rent goes up continuously and they keep coming up with reasons to have to come into your apartment, never seen anything like it. the drunks here are horrible, they go crashing around at all hours and throw up in the parking lot. think maintenance comes to clean it up? I had a clogged toilet I had to live with until Monday one time because the weekend response is so bad. my suggestion is to try another community, or rent a house if you have a pet - this place is terrible!

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