I've lived at Highwood now for 2 years. There are some things that I've grown unhappy with in my time there, but when I first moved in, I thought it was a great place to live and really there are worse places to live. Bedrooms are a good size and kitchens are updated. The grounds are pretty, and the pool is nice. There is ample parking, and it's in a nicely wooded area.

What I don't like: there are some serious mold issues in the winter time, and the staff seems to care less about it. I had them come in and clean the mold off of our windows and they just used some windex and wiped it down. I could've done that myself!! Mold is dangerous!

There is only ONE laundry room per building with 2 washers and 2 dryers. It often translates into having to wait for a machine, or going to gather your laundry only to find it sitting on top of the machine. Be prepared to put extra time on the dryers as 60 minutes on high often doesn't completely dry a load no matter how big or small.

Walls are thin, I can hear my neighbor talking on her phone from my bedroom. You can walk down the halls and hear tvs, conversations and all sorts of other stuff clear as a bell.

Our slider screen has been broken since the day we moved in, and they won't fix it. They say that all of the slider screens are like that. While the staff SEEMS to be helpful, we've encountered issues with them not being knowledgeable and going back on their word. However, they are quick to respond to most problems.

Also, instead of heating vents - there is one heating unit, it sits in the corner of the living room and its the only heating unit for the entire apartment. It eats up a good portion of the room, so don't expect to be able to use all the square footage that is advertised.

DirecTV, and internet are *included* in rent (NOT FREE), but the wireless net is spotty, and we've lost it for a couple days at a time. Also, expect a set-up fee for the internet. You either need to pay for the internet service guy to come out and plug in the password to get access OR you need to pay $99 for a bridge to access the net. You can't get cable instead of DTV, and you can't use a DVR. DTV is ONLY available in the living room and the MBR - you have to watch the same thing at the same time in both rooms, and you can't change the channel from the BR, only the LR.

The pool closes at 10 PM (kinda early) so don't expect to be able to take a late night dip; which has become a detraction for me since I'd like access to the pool without kids constantly being there.

This is an attractive complex for families - and there are kids running around all the time. That being said, they can be noisy, and at times are outside playing far too early in the morning.

These are all generally small issues, but to me they affect the quality of life at Highwood on a daily basis. We live in a corner unit and at night all we ever hear are the doors slamming closed and people stomping up and down the stairs.

Management doesn't seem to be open to constructive criticism and has gotten defensive about complaints or requests, and I've always been polite to them.

I would definitely stay a 3rd year, mostly because of convenience to where I work, and I feel safe living at Highwood... but the small things are starting to become bigger things in my eyes. I'd still recommend the community to someone else, but people need to be prepared with the facts going in there.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/22/2008
If you haven't moved out yet, expect to get "hosed" when it comes to getting your security deposit back in full. They are notorious for finding ridiculous reasons to keep some or all of it -- this is something I was unaware of until I moved out and they charged me almost two hundred dollars to clean my oven (which, I'd like to add, wasn't clean when we moved in because it smoked so much that it set off the smoke detectors the first night we used it). I then found out from other past tenants that this was a common occurrence. It's very annoying because, like you, I considered myself and my family to be good tenants. And, like you, these "little things" also began to add up during the time we lived there, but we overlooked them because we didn't want to make a fuss. If I had known then what I know now about the way this complex operates, and about the sleazy tactics they employ in order to make an extra buck, I would have definitely been a much more outspoken tenant, and I probably would have had a better living environment (we also had persistent problems with mold as well as with a leaking air conditioning unit, unreliable internet and cable connections, a faulty septic system, an extremely loud dishwasher that never got everything clean -- ah! the list just goes on!!!).
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/05/2008
After all the problems this reviewer cited - problems I also had - why would he/she recommend this place? All I can think is that he/she did so in error, because I can't imagine that a sensible person who put up with all this to actually recommend that other people go through the same stuff.

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