Let's start with the good. I've living in the older style apartments (Hillcrest Village I) for a few months now and so far it's lived up to my expectations so far. I think the best part of the apartment is having at least one window in every room. The laundry room isn't too far away, but there's only 3 washer and dryers so it can get backed up.

Now for the bad. In my personal experience with the management office, I haven't found them to be particularly bright. I don't want to go into specifics about it, but I would recommend reading and listening to every word they have to say very carefully. The so-called cleaning of the apartment was a joke. The bath tub and bathroom drains were both clogged with hair from the previous tenant. They repainted the bathroom without cleaning it first and you can see all the hair and dust they painted over. In other rooms, they just painted over picture hanging nails. Really, how hard is it to remove those tiny nails before painting the walls''' And some walls weren't even painted at all because there is still the blue poster hanging gum on the wall from the previous tenant. The metal carpet trim between the carpeted hallway and the wood floors of the bedroom wasn't secure and was actually bent up. I actually got a number of cuts and scrapes from it before I went out and bought some nails to hammer it down.

Once I was finally able to get the apartment clean and minor repairs fixed (that I did myself), it's been fine. Convenient location for East Lansing and MSU.

User Responses
From: barn1959	Date: 08/11/2009
I've lived in the older units for over a year. I agree the company they hire to paint leaves something to be desired sometimes. You can have 5 good paint jobs and just one will ruin the look, such as painting over stuff on the walls or getting paint on the chrome trim of the medicine cabinet. But really, don't you think you're being too picky in your review? Too harsh? I've dealt with the two ladies in the office and I think you're way off in your assessment of them. I've found them to be professional and friendly all of the time, in handling my requests for repairs or when I was late with a rent payment and I had to pay a fee, which is fair. The metal strip you mention - if you asked the office to have it repaired, there is no doubt in my mind that it would have been taken care of quickly and done well. I've dealt with three men that do maintenance and they do very good work consistently. I agree on the bath tub drain having hair buildup, but really, I've never heard of a apartment place that had cleaning drains as part of it's regular process of cleanup between tenants. That's something you call about and it gets cleaned as needed, or you do it yourself. I cleaned mine myself, but I could have called and had it done too with no hassle. These apartments are old, and not spiffy brand new. But they have a character and charm that the spiffy apartments don't have either. Real oak floors, lots of closets, bay windows in some units, wood used for trim instead of plastic fake wood, real tile in the bathroom from 1939 laid in place by hand rather than sheets of prefabbed "tile", concrete under the first floor oak floors. And the grounds are kept up like a park - it's really beautiful and a world of difference from the modern cost efficient apartment places. This is just my opinion, like your above. TB

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