I've been a resident of Hillside Estates for a little over 6 months. I am renting from the individual owner of the condo. Her unit has been great, but the buildings are terrbily maintained. There are card-operated washing machines in the basement, 3 for the building, and on any given day at least 2 of the 3 are broken. Your clothes will be in a 38 minute wash cycle for at least an hour, and that's if you stay down there and baby-sit it. The cycle constantly stops and needs to be reset, leaving your clothes soaking in hot (no matter what cycle you selected the water comes out hot) water until you reset again. Half the time even resetting doesn't work so you drag the clothes out of the puddle of water and bring them soaking wet somewhere, anywhere else to dry. This problem has been reported by several residents over the course of the past month and a half and nothing is ever done about it. The company that provides the washers says to unplug which resets the computer but your clothes are still soaked and dirty. And maintenance takes down any signs one may post in an attempt to be a good neighbor and warn others not to use the machines, so this 'cycle' continues week after week.

Building repairs - In the rules/regulations booklet of the complex it clearly states "Maintenance may not enter a unit without 24 hour notice to the owner/tenant". Twice maintenance has called asking if they could come in 'right now', and once they just let themselves in with no owner either to myself or the owner. Carpet has been replaced in my building hallways, a project promised to take 'no more than a month for the entire complex'. They have been here for over 2. The carpets are left in ragged states of various completion, and I have found several tools left in the hallways for a night which could prove very dangerous should one of the children that live in the building should come across. I don't have children, but I hate to think what might happen should one of my neighbors children find the utility knife left out last week, or step on the nails scattered down the hall last night. My father came to visit and almost tripped up the stairs because the carpet wasn't secured.
Overall, the rent is cheaper than average for Derry, but not by much.
The police frequent this complex, and they are *not* just visiting.
There are a lot of dogs, and the majority of the owners are responsible but some let young children walk the dogs that they really cannot physically restrain if need be.
Motorcycles are not allowed on this property.
The management office is almost always closed, and the property manager is always 'on lunch' or 'on vacation'.
The hallways smell like a college bar.
Snow removal is adequate at best, sometimes not occurring until several hours after the storm.
The landscaping company is excellent, although that is probably more of their own accomplishments rather than that of the management.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 03/25/2009
Funny, I lived here for a couple years and one of my biggest complaints was the landscaping company. They literally plowed you in (or out) of your parking spot each and every time, when they finally did come. It's as if they tilted the plow just right to make the biggest possible pile of snow that you could neither drive through nor escape from. I once called them to complain and was asked if I could do a better job. "No," I said, "but I know plenty who could," to which he told me I should move out if I didn't like it. Funny part is we did, but by then we were going to anyway. Yeah, that's definitely how I like being treated. Always found it shameful that the condon association threw tens of thousands down the drain each year to pay these guys to maintain the grounds rather than maintaining the buildings which are simply not maintained at all. The grounds were iffy at best. George, the maintenance guy, is probably the only redeeming quality about this "Association" and unfortunately he is managed by Janet, the trusty "Property Manager," so while he was a nice guy, any usefulness he might have had was canceled out by her. Had the same problem with random entries into our unit. First it was the intercom system being broken, which apparently rose to the level of "emergency" so they just entered each and every unit in the building without notice. Then there were the countless other entries for faucet inspection, door painting, the list goes on... Came home from work to no water more times than I can count and the plumber was never anywhere to be found. They'd just shut off water to the entire building and take off. Can't call Janet because she's gone, naturally, and when you called the answering service they'd take your message and pass it on the next day. Highly useful. I think our closest neighbor was the Derry PD cruiser that spend most nights parked with its parking lights flashing toward our balcony door. The door that froze shut in the winter and leaked water any other time of year and rotted the entire drywall casing around it. Every water drain in the unit (both sinks, bathtub) were in a constant state of clog. If you took a 15 minute shower, you were standing in 4 inches of water when you were done. If you left the bathroom sink running while brushing your teeth, it was almost overflowing. I must have purchased 100 bottles of Drano in our 2 years here trying to fight it. It was a losing battle because the problem was systemic throughout the building. Doesn't matter how good your unit's drains are when the only way out is clogged. So to be fair, there were some redeeming qualities about this place, such as the free heat and hot water. There was about a 2 month period when we had little to no hot water but other than that it was nice to not have to worry about how warm you wanted to be or how long you wanted to shower. Our final reason for leaving was the increased presence of thugs and white trash in our building toward the end. Now you're probably thinking, weren't they all losers to begin with? Well, to an extent, perhaps, but our particular building had a lot of really nice elderly people who got conned into purchasing one of these apartment-turned-condos when the builder or real estate company that owned them put them up for sale 20 years ago. Toward the end, we started inheriting high school dropouts and baby mamas with drug dealer boyfriends. That's when we said our goodbyes and got out of town. It's been real. I'll hardly miss 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