I signed a lease with Runaway Bay in 2007 and was very excited to move here. The grounds are beautiful, it is a quiet place to live and the office staff was very nice...at first, little did we know....
Unlike most other rental places/apartment complexes, Runaway Bay has no grace period for late rent. If you do not have your rent to them by 6pm on the first of the month, REGARDLESS, they send out a Eviction notice AND charge you $75. This is the only apartment complex I have ever known to be so harsh and not understand that tenants just sometime do not always get paid right on the first! And all of the little hidden fees they throw at you are absolutely insane...
We had multiple little things go wrong in our place--our refrigerator has leaked standing water in the back from DAY 1, the air conditioning broke in the middle of summer and it took them 3 days to fix it (during 90 degree heat), our towel bar in the bathroom has been broken since we moved in and still won't hang right, the cupboards are cheap and uneven and the appliances are dated--and the oven is VERY wonky and doesn't work right half the time.
Would I recommend RB to anyone' No, I would not. While I will admit it was nice to have a washer and dryer in the unit, the grounds are beautiful and the neighbors were quiet...really...it is NOT worth your money (rent does not include any utilities, so look at paying near $700/month for a TINY 1 bedroom). The security is TERRIBLE--anyone can walk into ANY of the buildings at any time (no secure entrance/buzzer), the lock on your front door is not very safe (no deadbolt!) and also my car got broken into!!!!Should also mention there are little hidden fees that they don't tell you about, such as sewage disposal--which went up 3 TIMES in one year and is added to your rent, bringing it up...and up...and up!
I have been reading a LOT and from what I can tell, I will probably not get all of my security deposit back, despite us being up front about everything wrong in the apartment and being good tenants. The office staff is nice to your face and then they are quick to turn into really rude and shallow women who are only after one thing--M-O-N-E-Y! MAKE SURE you get everything in writing...when I signed my Notice to Vacate, the manager was very bitchy to me because I dared to ask for a copy of it for my records! Then, she just walked away and didn't even say thank you to me, because I was leaving. Of course, after I signed the vacate notice, the staff called me constantly trying to get me to stay, but no such luck...we are moving onto a much more reasonably priced, nicer place.
Also, a little ditty I want to get out there--one of the groundsmen/maintenance men lived in a friend of ours building. His wife/girlfriend who lives with him apparently thought that it was just fine and dandy to park in the Handicapped spot of our friend's building for a good 6-8 months!!!! It took one of the tenants writing a NOTE posted up in the hallway to get her to stop!! Also, she smoked in the hallway, which reeked...just bad, bad all around.
Don't let the surface beauty of Runaway Bay fool you...like a Monet painting, from far away it's beautiful but up close and under the surface, it's just not worth your hard earned money, and it's a shady mess...believe me!!!!!!!!!!

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