I lived in Briarcrest for 10 years, from 1989 to 1999 so I know it well. There aren't many townhouses to rent in Hershey. Each unit has a small porch out back which you access thru the sliding glass doors in the living room. Each unit is supplied with an economy size, stackable washer and dryer, you can't put too many clothes in it, maybe 3 pairs of jeans and one shirt, or a total of 5 bathtowels.The electric bills for a townhouse are outrageous, I suppose due to the electric heat, air, dishwasher and w/d, plus the doors and windows have never been replaced with the newer energy conserving models. In the winter, when I used to put a plastic cover over the sliding doors, it was amazing how much air was trying push thru, the plastic bloated like a huge bubble. I had a family of 3 and my electric bills were alway up to or over 125 a month. My friend who had a family of four (and a bedwetting child) paid usually 200 electric a month.
There was a lot of storage in the attic and the shed attatched to the patio. The construction was pretty cheap. Cheap carpeting, as cheap as they could find is my guess, it wore out fast, with only 3 people. Flat paint on the walls which got filthy fast. Water pressure was good. A long walk out to the trash from where my unit was, so choose a unit that is closer.Plenty of recycling bins. Trash bin was not suffiecent for all the apartments it had to handle for its area, and trash was often left laying around the bin.
While I lived there they implemented marked parking spaces.This was a good idea, but they only marked you for one car, and then there was limited visitor parking and most units had 2 cars. So virtually there were almost no spaces for actual visitors, and they often had to park far away. So many times people would park in your spot. Several neighbors had called the police when this would happen, I would just park the car in with my own, forcing them to come knock on my door when they wanted to leave.
Snow removal was done in a decent amount of time for the sidewalks, but was pitiful for the parking lots..some of the many lots would get done early and others maybe towards the end of the afternoon. They used to be great about having the lots plowed by mid morning when there was better management, but they must have decided to cut back expenses and the number of plows they hired. Icing the parking lot and keeping it safe to walk on was very poor. MANY people took falls, and cars often slid around the lots.
The repair people were pretty quick about coming out, the only thing is sometimes we had to call twice, because the repair dept claimed they never got the workorder the first time, this happened several times. Often the repair was only temporary or poorly done. The apartments are pretty old. I had repeated problems with my toilet and shower the whole time I was there. They never were able to fix my sliding glass door lock permanently, so I always worried about someone being able to break in . I used a long stick in that door runner so no one could open it, many of my neighbors did also.
It was pretty quiet, of course thru the course of 10 yrs, I had great neighbors and bad neighbors, but the sound barrier was decent.
There are 2 pools, but one has been closed for the past 10 yrs. The one that is opened is a nice size, with a separate baby pool. They charge way too much for a pool pass in addition to rent. 70.00 for a family pass. They claim this is to pay the lifegaurd and maintain the pool. With the high rent they charge this pass should be included with the rent. But I learned that Briarcrest wants tenants to pay all costs of everything. Someone is making a HUGE profit.
They got rid of all the playgrounds and replaced them with nothing but grass.
There are tennis courts.
After 10 yrs they tried nickle and diming me out of my entire deposit. They made me pay for things that after 10 yrs use, they should have just replaced on their own. This was typical of the new management who seemed to get money hungry, yet the services went below average.
I have a friend who moved into a Briarcrest townhouse in the past six months, and the rent is very expensive now. She pays over 720 for a 2 bedroom/2 bath.( 2 yrs ago we were paying 650 for this, so you see how much they up the rent every yr) Briarcrest was built in the early 70's, and it cost them about 6000 a unit to build, so each unit is paid for thousands of times over, yet they are still trying to overcharge on the rent. Between rent and the electric bill it will cost a small fortune to live there now.
Would I reccomend it' If you want townhouse living, and want to rent, you don't have much of a choice in hershey.
On one more note, with an apartment complex this size, with the poorly lit parking lots, and the numerous car break ins and vandalisms listed in the police reports throughout the yr, I feel Briarcrest, from their OWN pockets, should pay for a couple of security guys to roam around thru the nite.The township police only ran thru once in great while, and Im sure thats because they were there on other business. There were always a lot of young kids causing trouble.

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