I have lived with Bonnie ridge for one year and six months, I have several reviews regarding them and will separate each accordingly to allow people who are considering moving there to make a conscious, educated decision.

The Good:
Pet Policy: Bonnie Ridge allows all pets with restrictions only on aggressive breeds, or those breed that are believed to be a hazard to other pets In the community. If you were recently foreclosed upon and need an apartment that will allow your two great Danes, rejoice! Although there is an incredibly high price for pet rent your pets are welcome here.

Ambiance: The surrounding area of Bonnie Ridge is generally well kept throughout the spring. You will probably run into a few landscapers while walking your dog alongside one of the many nature trails in the woods that surround the property. It is beautifully decorated with trees, leaves, and flowers. Be sure to keep Fido on a tight lease amid the roaming squirrels and bunny rabbits.

Leasing: After one year, you retain the option of breaking your lease under certain qualifications. Therefore, in the event of job loss, health reasons, or job transfer, you can move without penalty provided you inform bonnie Ridge ahead of time. I m aware that when you are unemployed and are barley scraping by with temp work, two months is a lot to ask but at least it isn't due upfront prior to the move like many apartment complexes in the area demand.

Maintenance: I once submitted a service request at 11:00pm, well after the maintenance office is closed online for a broken light bulb in the corridor leading up the staircase. By the time I went outside to walk my dog that same evening, say, 11:30-11:45, the light was replaced. It isn't always this way, but for a majority of the time, service requests are fulfilled within 24 hours. IN the event that they dont meet your service expectations, you can submit a pledge request for the lack of appropriate service. Within a month, maybe two, they will refund your rent for the day of the offense.

The Bad:
Parking: Every day by 4:00pm, parking involves loading up the nearest rifle and aiming closely for the headshot of the person parking in front of your apartment. Alright, not nearly so bad, but parking spots are not assigned, and though there are speed bumps alongside the roads to ward off speeding, it does nothing when you neighbor has four people living with her and has five cars. I ve yet to live in an apartment complex with parking this bad, truly, something needs to be done to allot residents with only a select number of spaces in the immediate lot and parking the remainder elsewhere.

Mice: You may only be happy at these apartments for more than six months if you have a cat. These apartments are old, shoddy, have poor insulation, and are such their fixtures are probably breeding nests for pests. They are everywhere, and even if you are very clean, take out your trash every night and never leave a dish in the sink, it counts for nothing. Turn off your lights and walk away and you will find your counter tops dotted with the trails of mice dropping. My condolences when you will look at the carpet by the window and see dropping all around, only for them to pull your carpet to find the headquarters for the Municipal Incorporation for Critters and Educated Vermin. (MICE)

Utilities: Outrageous! Clearly the bills are separated between all residents of the complex, and usage has nothing to do with residents. Prior to some of my neighbors moving in, my ISTA bills, ISTA, being the vendor Bonnie Ridge uses to calculate water and heat usage, was under eighty-five dollars monthly, now I have bills ranging from one hundred sixty five to two hundred, and no, that doesn't include BGE electricity charges. As far as Bonnie Ridge is concerned, the one bedroom single unit on the first floor consumes as much energy as the two bedroom unit with five people living there on the second floor. Furthermore, since I unplug everything before I go to work the next day, I m certain that Bonnie Ridge is padding the bills now that they are cut directly to them, and they more than likely only pay ista for calculations. Did I mention that if you dont pay ISTA and Rent at the same time you will now be charged a late fee that could be over thirty dollars, despite the size of your bill'

Rent Increases: As a resident of Bonnie Ridge I never paid my rent late because it was automatically deducted from my checking account. The first of every month, Bonnie Ridge had direct access to my funds to withdraw rental fees, I'll overlook that when they decided to make a switch and have all bills payer directly to Bonnie Ridge and no longer ista, and simply hit my bank account the extra 150 bucks without requesting my confirmation or signature, as the point I am trying to make is that I am a great tenant who didn t delay on her bills. This however, had no bearing on how much my rent went up: perhaps it was for having to pay a vendor access my account, but my rent went up a whopping 60 dollars. No, I am not joking, I still have the letter they mailed me.

Heat: Or the lack thereof. As an elaboration on my previous rant about utilities, Bonnie Ridge has a limit, 72 degrees, on how much you may heat your apartment. However, there is no limit on how much they can bill you for a month. In rain, snow, and forty hour winds, there is nothing warm about seventy two degrees, especially when your bills reflect a much higher usage. This is one of my major reasons for leaving, I could not contend with another winter here.

Washer in Dryer : Bonnie Ridge would rather spend all the money they are sucking out of you into a crappy, muddy, dog park instead of common rooms for some of the complexes. Your washer and dryer is a stackable unit in your kitchen that is not large enough to contain one blanket, or three pairs of jeans. It is only as deep as a 5 '9 person's upper thigh to right above thier ankles, water amounts are even lower. Lint filters right into the kitchen, so I feel deeply sorry for those of you with strong allergies its common knowledge to change the lint trap before and after each drying cycle, but it s even more common that dryers require professional cleaning about their filters and tubes in the meantime you have to either 1. Wear dirty clothes 2. Scrub the wall behind your dryer; they do take money from your security deposit for it, or finally 3. Wait for a sunny day and dry your clothes outside. Finally, please be mindful on cold days before you turn the dryer on. Like I said, there is a limitation on how much heat is allowed in your apartment, so if your drying is running a cycle, the thermostat will decide that it's plenty warm, and Will NOT PRODUCE HEAT. You'll honestly have to wait until your apartment freezes up again just to have it come back on.

Walls: Are made of paper mache, bubblegum, spit, and elbow grease. But they're painted a pretty white color!

I could go on, but you could see that living at Bonnie Ridge just isn't worth the trouble, especially in this recession. There are so many other apartment complexes that are offering free cooking gas, free water, or both. there is honesty no reason for you to consider living here unless you want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars for a one or two bedroom that is the same quality and space as a rat infested motel six. I cannot stress enough what a waste of money this place is, for the amount you spend you could rent a small townhouse or better yet, another apartment and spend even less and deal with the same problems. Do not come here unless you intend to take advantage of the pet policy and have no choice, and even then I strongly encourage you to just rent a house as its not worth it.

User Responses
From: efelen1	Date: 04/03/2009
haha, Anonymous, you are in fact wrong. I lived there for a year of hell that ended last Dec, and I was not evicted. I agree with everything the poster wrote, the apartment is a piece of ----.
From: ZiaTara	Date: 04/03/2009
Anonymous is truly lying, I also lived there for two years and I also agree with what the person wrote. The "bad" is infact true and I am glad i DON'T LIVE IN THAT HELL HOLE ANY MORE.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/04/2009
Once again- if you have questions about the reviews, call and speak with the office staff. Also, for those that care, more than half of all Bonnie Ridge employees live at Bonnie Ridge as well- each of us could tell you that the above reviews are lies.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/04/2009
I do believe that half of the staff live at Bonnie Ridge, especially if they are receiving discounts on rent from their employer. Just because staff live there does not mean that a reviews saying both some good and bad things about Bonnie Ridge makes it a lie.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/07/2009
Thank you to the person who decided to take the time.. you hit all my complaints... MICE.. MICE and more MICE, shabby paper thin walls, extreme lack of heat and last but not least the infamous ever rising ista bill. I've been duked! Run for your life!
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/08/2009
I can't believe that Apartment Staff is writing to save them anonymously !! This is hell H... truly, don't get fooled by anything said good about this place. The staff is really rude, every time you go to talk about anything they make you feel like S***. ISTA bills are high and they had over 12 hrs water leak continuously last weekend and of coarse they don't give a damn because tenants will be made to share the water bill !!
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/23/2009
Thanks for responding ANON. See now on the web page where it says (Copying and pasting here so I dont make a mistake) ....Option 1: You can choose to pay the amount due each month. This amount will vary from month to month, depending on overall usage and pricing. Option 2: If you prefer to have equal and predictable bills each month, you can select our "Equal Payment Plan" (EPP) option*. Your monthly bill will be determined based on the average expected cost for your apartment type, spread over a 12-month lease term. So its saying that Option 1, I personally will recieve a bill just for my usage? and you are saying this is not true? How much does an average BGE bill run ? Also the 62 degree is fine,the heat issue is bogus, when I am paying for it,I should be able to turn it up to 90 if I want. Makes NO sense? Mice...yes have seen this compaint several times..Are we saying a mouse a day? Or is it a colony of them in the house? Even the mouse a day thought is not comforting. Also I know that Home Properties is the corporate owner of these building and on their website it states this (again copied and pasted)......Renting FAQs Do you really mean you are offering a 30-day guarantee? Absolutely. We want our residents to be happy in their new home. No ifs, ands or buts about it. So they are saying if after 30 days we are not happy, we have the option to OPT out. Now wondering if this is in the lease contract? Again, I will let you know how this turns out and ANON am taking it you are the 1st poster here? Thanks again and will keep you informed.
From: Anonymous	Date: 04/24/2009
Alright lastest poster, because everyone is responding as anon you can call me MOO. I'll sign my commet here afterwards. Now to begin, I wanted to clarify that with either option, you will NEVER recieve a bill that's JUST for your usage. "The monthly bill will be determined based on the average expected cost for your apartment type over a 12 month lease term" is confusing legal talk for "we take into account the average usage for everyone else with your type of apt (1bed, 2bed, etc), and based on how much THEY used on average, we will bill EVERYONE accordingly; your individual usage has nothing to do with it." Also, the second option, The equal payment plan option, which I selected, is mutually bogus: you will recieve a bill displaying the due date for the first of each month in the amount of something similar to or around the sixty to eighty five you were quoted; but beneath it you will recieve an additonal note of: You balance before/after/etc this bill was: 110-165/dlrs!!!! So yes, DUE IMMEDIEDLY is time of rent is sixty five, but the entire bill balance, which must be paid before the next month is somewhere between 130-200/mnth, dependent on the season and how much usage everyone else is your building is running. Regarding BGE, I was a single with a dog and a boyfriend in a one bedroom and unplugged everything in my apartment prior to leaving for work and my bill ran between eighty to one hundred a month. So average you are looking at with Ista and BGE, somewhere between 260 monthly just for utilities. THERE IS A 30 DAY GET OUT OF LEASE WITHOUT PENALTY, that is true. I've not taken advantage of it, but I am asuming it's correct because I HAVE taken advantage of the "get out of your lease after a year option with no penalty." A word to everyone who is leaving, the possibility of recieving any of your security deposit back is almost nill, I left my apartment in immaculate condition and they charged me 300 just for the carpet alone and other misc charges that if I brought a lawyer in could easily be defined as wear and tear. Anon, if you are considering these apartments I'd like you to look into others, including CONDOs prior to your move. As you can see the bills are outreagous, the mice run rampant (unless you have a cat), the perks are attached with incredible pitfalls and insane fees. just aren't worth the steadily growing rent prices.

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