Pros:
1. Every apartment has a stackable washer and dryer and a fireplace. Most have large balconies.
2. The complex has a pool and hot tub.
3. The rooms were all quite large, including the bathrooms, which also had skylights.
4. The kitchens have garbage disposals and dishwashers.
5. Maintenance was fantastic, every time something needed fixing they did it right away. As an example, our roof started leaking about 7 am. The office opened at 8. They gave us a bucket at 8, had maintenance in our apartment and up on the roof by 9, had the roof professionally repaired within days (and with all the rain we had last summer, getting roofers was seriously difficult), and within 10 days had patched and re-painted the ceiling and steam-cleaned our carpet.
6. The office staff is also fantastic. Amazing. I've lived in a lot of apartments, and the staff at TA is easily the friendliest and most responsive I've ever dealt with.
7. The complex is pet-friendly. They allow cats and most dogs (breed restrictions). There is even a grassy area specifically designated for pets to do their business, with a plastic-bag dispenser. (For two cats, we paid a $175 non-refundable deposit, $175 refundable deposit, and $20/month pet rent.)
8. We got a letter assessing the damages to our apartment within days and the refund of the balance within a week. Further, there had been an error calculating the charges, and we got a second check within a week after that.
9. These apartments are *solid* in a way that you don't get nowadays. We never once heard any of our neighbors on the sides nor downstairs. In fact, our downstairs neighbor said she never heard us either. How many apartments can you say that about' (I didn't give high marks for construction because the insulation wasn't great and the carpet, cabinets, appliances, etc., were obviously really cheap. But the buildings themselves were fortresses.)
10. The location can't be beat. Across Eubank is a large park with playground, and across Juan Tabo there's a Smith's, Walgreen's, Kelly's Liquors, yoga studio, Mykonos (amazing Greek restaurant), Horse & Angel Tavern (consistently voted the best bar in the NE Heights in the Alibi's Best of 'Burque), Dairy Queen, Subway, consignment shop, and Da Vinci's Gourmet Pizza (possibly the best pizza in Albuquerque, certainly the most interesting, with garlic bread knots to die for).
11. Parking was good, every apartment has a garage and some apartments have a second assigned space just outside the garage. There is also plenty of other spaces, as well as parallel parking. People used to be astonished they could park right under my apartment when visiting and weren't taking anyone's spot by doing so. (Only 4 stars because there was a rash of auto break-ins last summer. Management did promptly put notices on everyone's door telling of the situation warning people not to leave valuables in their cars.)
12. If you're not home when you get a package, management will accept it and hold it in the office for you.
13. TONS of closet space. We had a good-size coat closet, two large linen closets. The master bedroom had one closet that was 8' long and one that was 6' long, and the second bedroom had one that was 8' long (actually the two bedrooms were identical except one had an extra closet and a bathroom that opened off of it). Some apartments also have storage out on the balcony (we did not).
14. When we moved to Albuquerque, we looked at six or seven different apartment complexes. This one had by far the most kitchen cabinet space and the best layout.
15. We never had any bugs, at all.
16. Management changes the batteries in everyone's smoke alarms twice a year--nice that you don't have to remember, but GREAT that you won't be woken up by your neighbor's having forgotten!
17. It's common in Albuquerque for apartment complexes to require tenants to pay *all* utilities, and TA does so. However, unlike most complexes that charge for water, they don't divide the complex's entire water bill between the tenants. Instead, each apartment has its very own water meter, and the costs of watering the grass, filling the pool, etc., are paid for by the complex. So you're not paying for anyone else's water use or for watering the grass, only your own use.

Cons:
1. These apartments are expensive for Albuquerque. We paid $891 $20 pet rent for a 2-BR, 2-Ba apartment (with W/D and garage).
2. They are also old. The floors creak, the cabinets are sort of banged up, the appliances are old (all of ours worked perfectly fine, but they were old). That said, it was absolutely clean and with fresh paint and new carpet when we moved in.
3. Snow removal was slow even for Albuquerque. Then again, I'm sure no one expected for us to get 20" over New Year's weekend. But still, the snow fell on Friday and Saturday and wasn't cleared until Wednesday afternoon.
4. The garages are small. They will hold a small car, but not a truck or SUV.
5. Some of the roofs do leak. They are flat and stucco and we had a particularly bad monsoon season last year. Management swears they've put in requests to have the buildings re-roofed but the corporate office refuses to allow it and insists they keep having the roofs re-sealed instead. (We were lucky, our leak was in the bedroom over an empty patch of floor.) I should add that despite heavy rains 5 days a week for 3 months, the patch job on the roof held all summer, although we did run into a leak from the melting snow later on.
6. Despite what I said about there not being any noise, the building across the way had an apartment full of students who liked to sit on their apartment and drink and talk loudly all night every night during the summer. We did make several noise complaints to management--but that's a problem you could just as easily have in a house, so I don't think it counts against the apartment complex. And management did help.


Bottom line: It's expensive and it's not shiny and new. But it's quiet, clean, pet-friendly, fair, polite, has all the amenities you could want, and the location can't be beat.

We only moved out because we wanted a house with a big yard for a dog to run around in. If we didn't want a dog, we would have stayed forever. Seriously.

User Responses
From: bluebutterfliesgirl	Date: 03/29/2007
Oh, I meant to include that we moved out because we wanted a house with a big yard for a dog to run around in. If we didn't want a dog, we would have stayed forever. Seriously.

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