I am an upcoming third-year student attending the University of Maine at Orono. After living the dorm life for the first year of my college experience, I decided to shop around for a new place to live for the upcoming year to get one step closer to living in the real world . The first place I discovered was the ever-so convenient Orchard Trails; an apartment complex that is within walking distance of the University campus. When I sat down to talk with management about the apartments, I was immediately drawn to how wonderful they explained life to be under their roofs. In addition to a convenient location, they described each of their amenities including a state of the art computer center, game room, basketball court, fitness center, tanning bed, billiards table, and television lounge in the main building. In each apartment are four bedrooms, one full kitchen, two full bathrooms, a laundry room, and a living room. On top of all this, all utilities including internet and cable are provided for just $495 per month per person, which is thoroughly explained through charts as being approximately $2600 cheaper than dorm living. I couldn t afford not to live in this community and signed the lease that day, before looking anywhere else.
I have now lived in Orchard Trails for nine months and, needless to say, I have had a much different experience than I expected a year ago. Throughout this informative essay, I will provide a thorough, unbiased presentation of the facts of living at Orchard Trails so you don t make the mistake I did in being stuck with a lease you are completely unsatisfied with.
Orchard Trails is a corporate owned college community. American Campus Communities, or ACC, is one of the nation s largest apartment complex builders. They own a total of 130 student housing properties at 85 colleges, which comes out to around 81,000 beds. Since there start in 1996, they have accumulated over $2 billion in student housing assets, which can be found right on their home webpage. In other words, this is a huge corporation looking to expand and make as much money as possible at the expense of mistreating its tenants.
In most cases for college students looking for a place to live, cost is the biggest issue. At $495 per month Orchard trails is one of the more expensive places to live in the area. But, this is not a flat rate, as they make it out to sound. On apartmentratings.com, a resident said, They just look for ways to get extra fees from these college students. Within the first month, a mandatory fee of $35 is charged to each person with a lease. I could not tell you what this fee is for. Also, each month a Con-service fee is billed to each of the tenants. From what I can gather from management, this fee is for going over the monthly utility cap. Each month, the four people living in the apartment are allowed $7.00 in water, $50.00 in electricity, and $8.00 in gas. Going over this cap is very easy to do. Each month, my roommates and I have had to pay between $5-$20. We live fairly conservatively (much as we did back home), always turning off lights, rarely using the washer and dryer, and cooking but 1-2 times per week. On top of this, all damages done to the apartment will be paid in full, as there is no security deposit. I agree that this is completely fair, but with a close look on the corporate webpage, they admit to value-engineering process implementation . After living here I completely understand what they mean by this.
One night I woke and headed to the bathroom through the hallway. I tripped on a shoe and tried to catch myself, and punctured a finger sized hole in the wall. I was amazed at how easily the hole appeared. After further inspection, the sheetrock walls are no more than 3/8 through them. The wiring in the apartments is atrocious. At any given time, about two thirds of the outlets in my apartment are working. The others simply put out no current at all. I find myself having to switch circuit panels on and off weekly. The water pipes underneath the sinks leak constantly and light bulbs blow at least once a month. There is absolutely no storage space in the apartments besides underneath the beds. The Bangor Daily News reported about Orchard Trails, Nothing ever gets fixed no matter how many times you complain, the anonymous commenter wrote this February. The apartments may appear nice, but the kitchen counters aren t even level! The apartments seem to be made as cheap [sic] as possible. After living two weeks in one of these apartments, you can certainly tell they were value-engineered.
Orchard Trails consists of 12 buildings with 12 apartments per building, managed by only a handful of people. A resident and employee of Orchard Trails said on apartmentratings.com, While working, at Orchard Trails, I noticed over and over again management disrespecting almost every resident that walked into the office. Rather it was making of fun of them or deliberatively being cold and unhelpful . From my own experience, I have never seen a ruder outfit. Everyone I talk to complains of the rude and arrogant manner in which the management works. Another quote from apartmentratings.com said, Orchard Trails is all about lying, technicalities and sucking your money. One more resident said, The management is horrible, not approachable and not reasonable . I know this sounds unfair to them, but it is the general consensus of the community here in the facilities and the town of Orono, including the local law enforcement.
In their pamphlet they explain all of the amenities they provide, however, they differ slightly from as they are shown in their pictures. The basketball court is completely run-down with collapsed rims, cracked backboards, and shaky supporting posts. The state of the art computer center consists of four regular computers with a sign on the door that says out of service half of the time. The game room does not exist from what I have seen and the fabulous patio behind the main building comes with an empty propane tank hooked up to a broken grill. The internet service is provided by Airwave; a company that mainly deals with apartment complexes. The lease for OT states, The performance of the System will vary from time to time based on network usage and other factors, and no minimum transmission speed is guaranteed at any time. From what I have found, the internet speed is normal from about 3:30 in the morning until about 7:00 in the morning. At most other times, web pages load about as slow as the dial-up service provided back home.
The parking lots and system at Orchard Trails was not thought out at all. In the summertime, when most residents move back home parking is fine. But, in the winter months (which is the majority of the time of the lease) it is nearly impossible to find a parking spot close to your building. Countless times this winter I had to park about a 5-10 minute walking distance away from my building so I didn t park in a tow away zone (which they enforce very strictly). After each snow storm, an average of 5-10 cars get stuck because they are so buried in with snow from the plow pushing the snow directly behind them. I am lucky enough to own a truck so this winter I bought a tow chain to help people out so they could move their cars before the allotted time before being towed away.
I am not from a high society, but for nearly $500 per month I figured Orchard Trails would maintain their facilities a little more. In front of each building are mounds of cigarette butts, broken glass, and cans, bottles, and trash. The grounds are very, very patchy with more gravel than grass. The buildings themselves are always full of holes in the walls, vandalism, and vomit stains. There are parties going on in the apartments that surround me 3-4 times per week that I can hear easily through the paper thin walls. Twice this year, my roommates have found our personal belongings rummaged through and stolen (totaling about $1000) without knowing how they got in. Since I have lived here, I have found Orchard Trails to be the biggest party spot for the University of Maine. Sometimes it gets rowdy and very disruptive to studying. With the noisy part. They told us and it's in our lease that if the cops are called on a tenant three times they get evicted. The cops have been called on people who live in our building at least four times just within two months and they haven't done a THING. , a resident posted on apartmentratings.com. Garrett Rollins, current resident at Orchard Trails and employee for American Campus Communities, agrees. This place has earned itself a reputation for wild parties , was written on stephaniewhittier.wordpress.com.
Earlier tonight I took a walk with my roommate and saw something on the side of Orchard Trails driveway that gave me the ambition to right this essay. In the dirt, completely visible were three heroin syringes. This shocked me because I knew there was alcohol abuse on the premises but had no idea of serious usage like heroin. After contacting the police, the officer confirmed they were indeed narcotics syringes and said to me directly, You never know what you re going to find especially in this community. Another law enforcement officer also stated, My kids will never live here.
My lease ends with Orchard Trails on August 15, 2009 (and, yes, I have to pay the full rate for half a month). You can bet I will be more careful with my decisions on living situations. Please take this essay into consideration when you look into Orchard Trails and don t let them trick you into leaving their offices with your integrity in their hands.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/23/2009
AMEN!!! I bet there is even more that could be added. Something needs to be done about places like Orchard Trails; college students have enough to worry about without being taken advantage of. A campaign should be started with letters like this being sent to Governor Baldacci, our representatives, our senators, the BBB, and anywhere else to get the point across until someone does something.

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