I have lived in what was formerly known as Camden Timber Creek for almost a year now. The Camden staff was extremely friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. However, that means nothing as it has been bought by Beacon management. Although, the Beacon staff has been very friendly and answered all of my questions and concerns so far. The landscaping got a little rough during the transition, but it is back to looking great as usual. One thing of concern is that they are installing a new gate. There is a large fence that wraps around the property, with a large gate that can completely seal off the property or roll open with a code. However, it is out of service. What Beacon is installing is a joke. It is one of those toll booth arms that swings up and down. So the large gate that rolls open will stay broken and out of the way, and it is being replaced by a little arm barrier that is used in parking garages and toll booths. I really don't see it's point. It's been installed for a month now, but they have not put it in to use. They have not given a start date either.

The buildings are older, but they still have features like a dishwasher, garbage disposal, and bathroom fan/vent. My freezer does not have an ice maker though. There is no real good place to put a microwave either. My biggest complaint is that no single bedroom apartments have washer/dryer hookups, so you have to use one of the laundry rooms. It costs $1.50 for every load, and you have to put your money on a card. The only place you can put money on your card is in the management office, which has worse hours than a bank. So if you realize you need to wash clothes one night, but you don't have any money on your card, you're SOL.

It is very quiet, and most everyone seems to keep to themselves. However, people are friendly and will smile and say hello. I feel very safe, the parking lots are well lit, and there is hardly any crime. Charlotte has some decent crime, and there is no way of escaping it no matter where you live.

During the summer, the pool is dominated by the Hispanic children, but it is not much of a pool anyway. If you want to go lay out, you'll be fine. The pool is split in to three sections, and is really only good for treading water. One of the sections is only a foot or two deep. There is a fitness room, but it is pretty modest. It has two treadmills, two little step machines, two cycles, and one weight machine that lets you do lat pulls, tricep extentions, row pulls, etc. There is a tv in there too.

Compared to national averages, there is a larger Hispanic population here than normal, a smaller percentage of ------- Americans, and the rest is mostly white (there are other races and ethnicities but they are only sprinkled in). The age range seems to be pretty diverse spanning both ends of the spectrum.

I am on the back side of one of the buildings and face the woods, so I don't get any noise from the parking lot. But it's not like anything is going on out there anyway. I have not had any problems with bugs in the apartment so far. The only problem is really at night during the summer. There is a light outside your door that cuts on automatically every night, and you have no way of turning it off. Since I am on the wooded side, there is always 1000s of bugs hovering around the light and thus my door. I ended up removing the bulb one day and it took care of the bug problem. I put the bulb back in during the winter and I did not have any problems.

I'm not sure what Beacon will be offering, but Camden made you pay for cable. I didn't mind as it was pretty cheap and it included HBO. During the extremes of Summer and Winter, the power bill got a little high, but in the Fall and Spring I went mostly without running the AC or heat. The AC broke down once, but it was fixed immediately (this was with Camden though).

All in all I've been pretty pleased with my experience. I love the location as I'm 5 minutes from I-77, 10 minutes from downtown, and 10 minutes from Southpark Mall. I won't be renewing my lease because I want to be able to have a washer and dryer in my apartment. If the hookups were there, then I would be staying.

Update: I was there for a few more months after posting this review, so I just wanted to give some final information. As far as the gate is concerned, they did get the larger rolling gate back up. It was a nice security feature for 3 days. Then someone rammed the gate when they tried to sneak through it, and so now it was broken. I left before they fixed it, so I have no idea on its status now. You can't really blame Beacon for that. They tried. People are always going to find a way around security. After having some more experience with the staff, I found them to be very friendly and accommodating. Based on the the other ratings, these apartments seem to be hit and miss. You don't know if you're going to get a good one or one with maintenance and bug issues. That's just the reality of any older complex.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/28/2008
what is " ------- Americans". grow up!
From: iraterenter9	Date: 08/19/2008
I hear you on the light outside of the door and the security gate is a JOKE! Everyone enters the property through the exit gate once it is opened!
From: acoastal	Date: 10/16/2008
To Anonymous, For some reason the site blanked out the name of the continent that black people come from. Sorry, for trying to use the politically correct term. I'll try to grow up next time....
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/28/2008
The gate problem is the fault of the people (not all, but some) who reside here. Every time they fix the gate, some idiot breaks it again. I went to the office to ask, at one time, when they were planning on fixing it again and they informed me that since it costs $1000 every time some idiot runs into it, they are installing cameras and will fix the gate once the cameras are in, so the next idiot who breaks the gate will end up paying for it.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates