From what we can tell, life is great if you live in the A building--the building where the leasing office is located. You get everything new first; they want to keep your building looking nice, because that's what prospective renters will see. The farther you are from the leasing office, the less important you are to them.
I've read some of the reviews on this site and I agree that the only good thing about this place is that they are quick to shovel out the parking lot. Otherwise, the parking lot is a good place to start:
--Parking lot: in serious disrepair; full of potholes; there is no enforcement of legal parking, people often park taking up two spaces, or they illegally park near the top of the hill creating a dangerous situation where two cars cannot pass or see each other well; people are constantly speeding through the parking lot, where there are often people (esp. children) walking because there are no pedestrian walkways; if you pay for a covered spot, there is no enforcement to keep people out of it; if you park in a regular spot under the balconies, and it snows, expect to find lots of cigarette butts in the snow as you clean off your car.
--Fitness center: looks like a great incentive, and I do appreciate it, but... there are lots of people who don't live in the complex using it, they either have friends who do live here that let them in, or they follow tenants; the cardio equipment doesn't work half the time; the weights in the weight room are always spread around the floor because people aren't considerate enough to put them up; people don't clean up after themselves by wiping down equipment either, even though spray bottles and paper towels are provided; and there are apparently a lot of people who live here that don't use (enough) deodorant because the center will often stink so bad of B.O. that I can't stand it and have to leave.
--Common areas: other people have already commented on the litter, the broken doors and kicked in windows; now that they allow dogs here I've found dog s*** in the common areas, once it was there for several days; there was graffiti under the stairs for a whole week one time, I had to call the office several days in a row before it was cleaned up, even then it wasn't cleaned up until I sent an e-mail to the manager threatening to go to corporate, the whole time all that she and the management staff gave me were excuses, basically that the maintenance staff was busy with quality-of-life issues, fine, but (I asked) why didn't they bring in an outside painter if their full-time staff was busy; many others have also mentioned the constant fire alarms going off, at least weekly, sometimes daily on weekends, which aside from being annoying is also dangerous, because we no longer heed them, and if there is ever a real fire, the only people who will leave the building will be brand new tenants; then there's the garbage chutes, despite a sign hanging above the chute asking people to take items that won't fit down to the dumpster, people still either stuff their garbage in the chute anyway, or leave it sitting in the garbage room, especially nasty at the end of the weekend, and I can't imagine life in the apartment on the other side of the wall.
--Apartments: nicely remodeled, if you're just taking a glimpse at the Show Apartments; they opened up the kitchen area to the dining room by moving the coat closet to the hallway, which means that they cut the bedroom closet in half, so there is barely enough room for one person's clothes, and the coat closet in the hallway is so narrow, you can't hang up coats with regular hangers, because the door won't close; the track lighting in the kitchen is really fancy, but it's so dim that it's completely useless if you actually like to cook (and see what you're doing), and Jefferson Hills has decided they do not replace light bulbs (I have never lived in an apartment where the management did not replace the light bulbs that were part of the permanent fixtures), and the light bulbs are not standard, so you have to go to a hardware store to get them, plus they're more expensive, up to $14.99, and because they're connected, if you don't replace one right away, they'll all start burning out more quickly; as for bugs, we don't have a problem on a regular basis, however when there is construction going on in an adjacent apartment, bugs do start popping out of the drains; lastly, the electricity bill, the windows are so poorly sealed, that wind will come through and rattle the blinds, which also means that a lot of cold air is getting in, forcing your heating unit to work harder, costing you extra money.
--Security: they hired a security guard, but good luck finding his number (even when it was posted, people kept ripping it off the wall); if you did save his number and you call him, apparently it's also his personal cell phone, because he just answers, "hello", and if you ask him if he's the JH security guy, he says 'yes' like you're stupid for asking.
--Overall, the management keeps spending money on stupid stuff to make the place appear nicer (at first glance); now, they've got a project to replace the barred balconies with plastic/glass, which I know is safer for kids who like to stick their heads through stuff, but who's going to clean the outside and how nice are they going to look when they're covered with spots and dirt (which will only be visible to you from your apartment, not to the prospective tenants looking up from the lot); they spent all this money on putting (I'm not sure what they're called) "door closers" on all the apartment doors, why' all they do is make the door close slowly if it's more than halfway open, so you have to pull it closed if you're in a hurry, then they slam the door shut the last foot, so you get squashed if your hands are full of groceries or whatever; they should be spending the money on security cameras and parking lot repair and monitoring, and light bulbs.

User Responses
From: hkavvi	Date: 02/25/2009
I completely agree about the light bulbs! The lighting fixtures in the bathroom are SO close to the shower that if a few drops of dew get on them they pop. I had one lightbulb have a circle on the top just pop out and then I watched it as it caught on fire! I called the Office immediately and her response was ' well.... we dont replace light bulbs ' i was like ' excuse me? are you serious? wow' who doesnt replace light bulbs. And yes the fitness center is nice when you walk in your all ' ooh ahh ' but when you spend the time in there, the weights ARE all over the floor, no one can put ANYTHING back and its frustrating being a girl I can't nor will I clean up after you! It's rediculous, and the maintenance guy? Forget it. Even the guy who vacuums is never around, you expect the maintenance guy to be around to? forget it. Ps. Thanks to JH for providing paperwork in other languages for maintenance when they don't in english. Ps. Life is not great in the A building. It is true that we have new fixtures. But find the pics I've posted. You'll see. And the fire trucks ARE here every single week, all you can hear is sirens, and they should put more cameras in the hallways for safety and who is pulling the alarms, theres a fire truck followed by an ambulance and I can just imagine how frustrated they are. The parking lot is full of holes and the bumper where you pull up to is totally cracked and broken away from the concrete on the side facing the gym. And yeah right, about the security guard. I have NEVER seen a security guard ever.
From: Anonymous	Date: 02/25/2009
The security guard is in a white truck and he only drives around at night, but goes back and forth to all 3 complexes. And thats funny, the first day i moved into Terrace i was told, Dont ever replace the light bulbs. we'll do that for you because we use certain energy efficient ones. (same company but you'd never know.)

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