I lived at Hampton House Villas for two years while I was going to SVSU. I chose this place because they allowed dogs and they were only one story so each unit had access to a slightly private backyard. I moved in a year before they did the renevations and lived there while the construction was going on.
I guess I should start by saying that my first year living here I had some problems but nothing like the second year. The sliding glass door constantly went off track and I would have to lift it up and put it back on. I lived alone though and the door was extremely heavy. And in the summer it was so hot from the sun I would always burn my hands. It wouldn't have been a big deal but I had a dog that had to go outside to use the bathroom. I listed this issue on my lease and was told that it would be fixed but it never was. Also my security stick was missing so the office staff gave me a cane they found in someone else's apartment to use. I used that for two years. Also the first year I had issues with my furnace in the winter. The pilot light wouldn't always light and the one and only maintance man would come and relight it but couldn't always get there when it happened so I sometimes had to wait 24 hours with no heat. After the 4th or 5th time they paid a professional to fix it and he said that it was getting to much gas which is why it would let out a huge bang and shake the whole house. But he fixed it and I never had any other problems with it.
Also my neighbors had a big dog and they let it out in the front yard and never picked up the dog poop all winter. I received some threatening phone calls from the office saying that it looked horrible and I needed to pick up after my dog. My dog is a min pin weighing about 18lbs at that time and the neighbors had a huge lab, meaning that there was a big differance between poop sizes. Also I had my own pooper scooper and constantly picked up after my dog who rarely pooped in the front yard anyway.
I signed another lease just because I didn't want to move again when I was almost done with school. The second year I got a new neighbor which was the cause of many many problems. Apparently he was a homeless man living in his car in the apartment places parking lot until they towed his car. The office staff became his buddies and moved him into an apartment next to me. At first he seemed like a nice old man. He would bring me things he found in the dumpster which I polietly took. But then he started acting weird like talking to my dog through the heating vents which were not separated so he could see into my apartment and actually look right into the bathroom. I figured out they weren't separted because he smoked constantly and the smell was drifting into my apartment which was begining to smell awful. The maintance man confirmed this and they sealed it off.
I stopped talking to him after some conversations confirmed that he was probably a schizophrenic or pshycopath. He was always saying that people were after him, coming to kill him and take his money. Also my 14 year old sister was watching the dog for me and he was watching her the whole night when she took the dog out and would follow her from front to back yards, it was just creepy and wrong. So I took my problems with him to the office manager who was replaced. She understood completely and said she would talk to him but seemed uncomfortable with him also. That's when I found out his nickname was crazyRay. She offered to move him to another unit but he wouldn't go.
After I complained he became rude and scary. He had nothing to do all day so he sat outside the front door. When I got home from work or school he would always whisper things under his breath at me and give me this crazy eye glare which is more scary when you know someone is really crazy. During this time the office got a new manager and the renevation work was slowly starting. I got sick of coming home to an almost naked old man outside my door swearing at me so I took my problems to the new manager.
She basically looked down on me because I was young and told me she wasn't there to babysit tennents so maybe I should just become friends with him. However, after I went home and went through my lease I returned to the office with a copy that stated her duties along with the rules my neighbor was violating. He had some woman friend in the office who stuck up for him and probably bashed me when I left. But after repeatedly trying to contact the corporate office he all of a sudden stopped sitting outside when I got home but he just became angrier. He called animal control about my dog barking which I later discovered was him banging on the walls trying to get him to bark. I got so sick of his crap I starting video taping everything to make my case, also in case he ended up killing me or something. Anyway this made me even madder because he called from the office phone his little buddies let him use to call animal control and the manager even told me later that she hadn't heard my dog barking at all. The model apartent was close to mine so she was always walking by.
I realized I wasn't going to win when all his buddies worked there. So I just tried to live out the remainder of my lease. I actually moved most of my stuff a month before the lease expired and came back for the rest and the inspection. I had a huge shepards hook my brother made me which cost around $100 for the materials which was stolen the week before I came back. It was extremely sentimental and I will be returning to look for the culprit another time. The manager basically confirmed that CrazyRay had taken it. I don't know if he is still there but GoodLuck to all who come across him.
For a one bedroom apartment It was not really very nice. I know everything is new now but Im sure the prices also went up. There are much nicer apartments in houses and some across the street the take dogs which is where I planned to move if I had to stay in the area another year. Goodbye Hampton House Villas, I don't miss you at all. If anyone knows any information about my stolen shepards hook please leave a comment.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/26/2009
I worked there for several months and have to say that the management was completely incompetent. There were plenty of issues I had brought up to her and ultimately the corporate office that were mostly ignored. We had drug dealers on south villa, people with extensive criminal records on central villa, and north villa was littered with people who couldn't afford their rent but were never kicked out. Living there myself, and seeing all the inner-workings of the complex, I cannot recommend to anyone that they sign a lease with these people. The manager was verbally abusive to her co-workers and completely disrespectful of her residents. I quit shortly after being hired, deciding I would rather work in a grocery store than continue there while I tried to find another leasing job. I would recommend leasing a house in the area above anything else. There is no better RIP OFF than Hampton House.

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