The owners/management/staff to this place are all shady. First of all, the places look like a dump. They make no effort to keep any of the buildings, sidewalks, or parking lot looking clean.

Throughout the year, we experienced flooding, our heater not working in the middle of winter, and a strew of other random issues. Our first month's electricity bill was $160 (we never turned the air on, kept lights off, etc). After flipping the breakers off for the A/C which was apparently running our elec meters non-stop, our second month's bill dropped to $35. Highland claimed it wasn't their issue.

We had to call 6 times in the middle of January over 2 weeks because our heater wasn't working. It finally took a call to the apartment manager at the time, Jean, to get someone to come out. Their solution' They bring us an electric space heater. We didn't use it for obvious reasons.

We called them several more times for severe flooding in our living room, which left the newly replaced wood flooring soggy and eventually leading to our coach legs leaving dents in it. When we had to call over Christmas break when it was flooding once again, the maintenance guy helped himself into our apartment, and then told us he doesn't need this ---- because it was his day off and told us to go ---- ourselves and left.

Their AC/heating guy (who speaks barely any english) claims they replace the filters on the vents regularly, but me having to dust and sweep once or more times per week begs to differ.

We constantly heard our upstairs neighbors partying, as well as the ones across the hall. If you stand in the entryway of the building, you can pretty much hear four conversations coming from four different apartments.

Everything in the bathroom looks like it's going to fall apart. So when I got a call from highland maintenance, I was ecstatic when they offered to come "re-model" our bathroom. After almost a week of screwing around (they promised 2 days in and out MAX), our bathroom looked exactly the same. They replaced our sink and painted the walls. It makes me wonder how that took a week. When they were finished, they didn't put the hand-towel rack back up on the wall. They put it on the washer machine and said "I don't know what you guys want to do with this. If you want to hook it back up you can, otherwise we don't care." then left.

Honestly, the only good thing I can say about these apartments in that the parking was half-decent. It wasn't even good. Not that it's necessarily highland's fault, but my car would constantly get parked right next to by some moron who has no idea how to park. My car was hit on the 2nd day after I moved in and of course no note or anything. There was this girl that always liked to double park her 1990s red oldsmobile, not because she didn't want her car to get hit, but because she has no idea how to pull into a spot. As far as I know, she never got a parking notice for it because she did it all year.

I've yet to get my security deposit, I'm waiting for them to come up with some -------- excuse as to why we don't deserve it. I guess we'll see what happens.

Update: I received my full security deposit, although I had to call them for it. When I asked when I'd be receiving it, they said they didn't have an address to send it to even though I gave them my permanent address multiple times by phone and once by mail when I mailed my parking permit back. So if I hadn't called, they would have just held on to it. I'm thankful this horrendous experience with Highland is over.

Further Update: They sent me a bill to my permanent (parent's) address for about $2 (along with my other roommates) threatening to refer me to a collection agency.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/19/2009
By law, they have to give you your deposit back within a certain amount of time [30 days?] or they have to double it. Talk to Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services to find out your rights.
From: IrishLeFay	Date: 08/01/2009
Haha, good luck getting your security deposit. I don't know what you paid, but mine was about $100, I sort of knew when I paid it, I'd never be seeing it again. They have it super cheap so it's automatic money in their pocket, because not too many people will go to alot of trouble to get it back, and it's really easy to come up with a hundred dollars worth of "damage" and "cleaning". I got my bill less than a week after I moved out. It came out (surprise surprise) to a $100 even. I didn't clean very hard, but there were some things they charged me for that I knew I had cleaned, and well. It's all a scam. The best of luck to ya.
From: getcurious_22	Date: 08/15/2009
I completely agree with you. My apartment was a dump when I moved in and I spent hours cleaning it when I moved out and they are trying to charge me $40 worth of "cleaning fees" I'm fighting them on it though and trying to get it back. It helped that the stuff they said they "fixed" were listed on my move in sheet as things that were damaged. My advice is to write down EVERY small thing that you see wrong with your apartment right when you move in and keep a copy so you have it documented.

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