UPDATED 5-2-09

I moved here from Texas and so my fiance had to come check this place out. I was terrified of the decision we'd made after seeing all these nasty reviews. We moved here May 07.

I was pleasantly surprised. First the good:
1. People are very friendly here (except half the office staff). You can easily get to know maintenance by their name, not because you have to call them out all the time but because they are always on the grounds and they take the time tosmile at you and say hi even if they are whizzing by on their golf cart.

2. Speaking of, maintenance calls are taken care of right away.

3. The place is designed very nicely. Tall ceilings, crown moldings, nice color schemes, large patios, great views (if you got the wooded view vs parkling lot.)

4. In time this place will be as pretty as the Lodge side--their landscaping is matured vs new like the Parks.

5. Half the office staff is quite accomodating. They made copies of my lease when I needed a page to prove residency to get my drivers license and held it there. They also counseled us when it was time to renew about our situation and reneweing vs month to month--no intimidation to renew.

6. I feel safe here. Yes, there's been two car breakins in the last 9 months--but nothing violent, no people have been hurt. And management alerted everyone the moment it was reported. We were not kept in the dark about safety measures. Also, people decorate their porches and I have yet to see anything stolen.

7. Good grace period for rent. Not that you should be late paying rent, but you get til the morning of the 6th before a late fee gets tacked on. Maybe that's the norm around here, I don't know.

8. Pet stations and monitoring. They don't 'yell at everyone' like some idiot said in another post. But they will post flyers at each building alerting us that someone caught and reported not using a pet station will be fined and I can't remember but we may have also gotten rewarded for turning them in. I could be wrong about that last point, but the overall point is, they are trying to ensure that pet stations (and their doggy bag stands) are being used.

9. Interior upkeep. You get your filter changed, your smoke detectors tested, etc. And you get decent notice when it's going to occur.

10. Swimming pool is quite large and well-shaped so people can have privacy while sharing the pool.

11. Gym is nice enough for an apartment complex, all the major machines and cable tv.

12. Indoor pool.

13. Close proximity to shopping, recreation, and the beltline/40 interchange. Great for commuters.

14. The lake! And the geese. Technically this belongs to the Lodge side, but we can easily walk there and enjoy it just the same.

15. Large fire extinguishers on every floor at the end of each staircase. Very easy to open the case.

16. Parking is adequate. Rarely and I mean rarely do I have to park more than a few cars away from my landing, and that's been at 3 a.m.

17. The shower has a garden tub and two built-in sets of shower shelves, great for him-and-her. Also, the vanity has two sinks and two undersink storage cubbies, and a row of deep drawers in between. Great for those who are territorial or who want a personal bath area and one for their guests.

18. Lots of windows. Great for natural light. And they are tall to boot.

19. Parking restrictions. They won't let you wash/fix your car in the parking lot, and more so, will come down on you for parking in a spot bass ackwards. I like them kinds of rules tho.

20. Few few children. Personal opinion, but I like not having to constantly worry about hitting errant kids darting out.

And the 'could be improved upon':
1. The layout. There's a LOT of absolutely wasted space in our place. We have 816 sq ft but you'd never know it. We have two storage units, one on the porch and one on the patio, and it shows by the smallness of the living room. Add to that our particular plan's office space--a desk at the end of a nine foot hall. Was that necessary' Our living room would actually be able to host company if we could take out five feet of the office and five feet of the storage unit. I mean...the storage unit is as big as the office...and together they are half the size of the apartment itself.
Also, wasted space in the bar area by the kitchen, and bathroom. You can't feasibly store anything--toiletries, towels, clothing in the closet...we've had to spend good money buying things to store stuff because of the floorplan.

2. Lack of insulation. Now yes, noise is more commonplace in an apartment situation so you have to make allowances. However, being able to hear the entire conversation in the bedroom in the apartment next to me means there isn't much between the walls and that concerns me. However, it's not so bad that I'd recommend against the place. This gal could just be a loudmouth too...because I don't hear noise anywhere else.

3. On that note, I'm on the top floor. I'm willing to hike up all those flights of stairs because I get a killer wooded view AND I don't have to worry about some knucklehead over me stomping around. I've had years of that with only the pople who think they're entitled to stomp around. So I can't really throw my two cents in about noise overhead in this particular complex.

4. ONE trash dumpster for 400 families. I don't know the laws on that in this town yet, but come on. On the other hand, it's concealed...and it isn't THAT hard to put your bags on the back of your car and drop it off on your way to work. So I put this in the not so good even though I don't have a problem with it.

5. I DO have a problem with no recycling ability however.

6. Bleached grounds. And for this I blame the lazy ass dog owners who seem to think the yard belongs to them. I don't walk on the grass and I'm so annoyed at these idiots letting dogs pee in the bushes, in the landscaping, taking a dump right outside someone's patio. You are walking the dog. Walk it to a station, territory issues be damned. Now, that's not to stay there are steaming piles of poo everywhere you look, there aren't, it's more the yellow spots everywhere that maintenance is constantly having to deal with.

7. Landscaping and layout of complex--it ain't no Lodge. Now, yes the trees and bushes are still 'new' so nothing's grown out and bushied up. But the whole Parks side is laid out around a central parking lot. Not attractive when pulling in and I really feel for those who get the parking lot view--it's the polar opposite from our wooded view. But I shouldn't like walking/driving through Lodge just for fun.

8. Half the office staff is rude as hell. Not helpful at all. Just one example: we were stuck in Vegas and you can't pay rent online here, so we called the office to ask what we could do about it. We'd never been late before and we were calling to give notice that we were bona fide stuck in Vegas. Her response' "What do you want ME to do about it'" The manager --------'s response was, "As long as it's here before I arrive tomorrow morning you'll be fine." IOW, as long as it's not late, you'll be fine. Last community I lived in was a bit nicer even when you didn't give notice that you were literally unable to pay the rent because you weren't even in the state.
And on that note, everyone here agrees that staff has poor attitudes--ought to be complaining to THEIR bosses higher up, not just on here. That would help get some changes made.

9. A peeve I have going--when are they going to get around to finishing up the entryway to the complex' How complicated is that landscaping job anyway'

10. Business center is lacking. I have more capabilities in my 9-foot-long office as I speak!

11. On my day of move-in, my place was trashed AFAIC. Paint on the ceilings...animal fur EVERYWHERE, including the freezer...paint spray everywhere, along with wet spots on the wall where paint was held too close...Dishwasher racks were bent...our move-in form looked like someone just dumped a bottle of black ink on it within the hour. And the best part was the office desk. See, they designed that really poorly too, and I'll get to that in #12, but there's a...sheetboard, if you will, holding the whole thing up. It had been busted out by the previous tenant and left in the shed. So we're sitting here with zero support for the desk. And, a HUGE water or pet stain on the living room carpet. In the end tho, maintenance fixed everything they could right away, cleaned it, vaccuumed it, painted it so we could move in, but come on! Who was in too much of a rush to do a quality walk-through after a make-ready' Hope ours was the only case.

12. The office desk. This isn't a peeve, this is just dumb. Imagine a slab of countertop. Now image it being held up not by proper nailing, but by a thin slice of board sitting underneath it. This board spans the depth of the counter and sits in the middle, creating two cubbies underneath. Not the biggest deal...until you consider that the hole in the counter to drop your cords is on the left side of the board underneath, and the outlet to plug those cords in is on the right side of the board underneath. Think that's been fun' Needless to say two people can't work at a two-person desk because you are foced to fill up one side so the cords can fit.

13. The walls. They are painted in such a way that you can't fart on them without making a stain. Do not touch them, lean anything against them, and god help you if food or liquid hit it. You can't get touchup paint for this place, it's sprayed-on and the walls are smooth. So you'll have to live with the inevitable scrapes and black marks that walking by them will leave. I don't like having to be THAT careful with my walls but...ah well...

So that's it for me. Most of the bad stuff Ive put here is really just things that itch a bit but not enough to make me move or even cause me stress. No place is perfect, but it's new, it's safe, it's beautiful, it's well located, and we'll probably renew for the second time at the end of the year. Speaking of rent only went up $25/month, which I'm used to.

UPDATES
1. You actually CAN get touch up paint, and as much as you want. Just ask maintenance, and bring your own can/jar. However, you will need to spend time thinning it out with water to match the consistency already on the wall.

2. Office staff--cripes, they're bad. I dug and dug trying to find their management company so I could file a complaint against one of the managers. I found the company, but nothing past that. I'll update as I go.

3. Do not believe anything management tells you. Make them put even the smallest things they tell you IN WRITING. We've been screwed out of a lot of money because they claimed ignorance later or in one case, said "I was wrong about the date, but this one time I won't charge you"--well, we weren't in the wrong, here, you told us wrong and you have to suck it up. That's right folks--they make errors all the time and then try to charge YOU for it. The staff alone will ensure that I tell everyone I know about them. They alone ruined the experience, and that's a shame to think there is no consistency about management except to expect inconsistency, especially where your pocketbook is concerned.

4. Oh, before I forget, when they come to 'test the alarms' it's actually a way to report who has pets in the apartment that are unpaid for. If they catch you, they'll force you to pay a deposit before accepting any more rent. This happened to a coworker of ours who also lived there briefly; she was only babysitting the cat for the afternoon, go figure. They didn't care. It's $300 NR by the way.

Hope this helps.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/20/2008
good review. Thanks. I'll be moving in here end of August. You're review helped make up my mind.
From: mrsbee22	Date: 06/18/2009
Thanks for the review. I was thinking about trying this place but management alone can ruin any pleasant experience so my husband and I will be avoiding it. We've lived in another nearby complex and had several experiences where things had gone wrong, however with the wonderful management they were not negative experiences.

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