Parking: During the day you can find a variety of good parking spots very close to the building; at night, the selection does dwindle. Parking under the pine trees can and does leave pine needles and possible sap on your car. Usually there will be spaces (not close) near Manor until midnight; after midnight, I ve had to park on the parking deck but I ve always found a spot. My car has not been vandalized. People who have parked under the parking deck have reported a lime build up on their car from calcium runoff from the upper deck, but I haven t experienced this since the parking deck isn t convenient for the Manor building.

Safety: I generally feel pretty safe here, though I m not one to venture out at night a lot. There are security cameras several places in the main lobby, but I have doubts as to whether they are real or decoys. Either way, the building is locked and you have to use your access key, though anyone could get in if someone held the door.

Front Desk: I think they said that there would be someone at the desk at all times, but this isn t true. The desk is manned from 5-9 on weekdays, and something like that on weekends. I don t consider it too big of an inconvenience to pick up my packages at that time, but if you worked these hours I suppose it could be for you. The front desk person (Karl) is friendly.

Neighbors/Noise: I have found people to be generally pretty friendly here. Not in a you re the new neighbor, here s a cup of sugar way, but will smile at you in the elevator.
A lot of people complain about the college students, and I am one of them, but I haven t had a loud party here and would consider myself very considerate and respectful. My neighbors, who are also college students, are a bit noisier, though their late-night music has happened around 6-7 times since I ve been here, and only kept me up once. I have never found evidence of their parties in the hall no trash, vandalism, etc. An almost more annoying thing is that they have friends constantly coming over and knocking on their door. The knocking happens like 3-4 times a day.
The people above me play instruments, but are decently skillful so it s not usually a problem.
Probably at least one car alarm goes off a day, usually for a 2-3 minute period. People drive through the parking lot with windows down blaring rap music 2-3 times a day on warmer days.

Maintenance: Maintenance has been responsive to my concerns. My refrigerator was broken (only the refrigerator component, not the freezer), and I called on Sunday and it was replaced on Wednesday (they wanted to try fresh Freon first). When our toilet was continuously running, they repaired it the day after we called and the same for our burned-out fluorescent overhead kitchen light. The maintenance people are nice, but a bit scrungy-no one you would have over for Sunday dinner.
The elevators have been out of service, but I would estimate this has occurred for a total of 6-7 days over the time I ve lived here (one year).

Staff: I ve had very little contact with the Coach House staff since move-in so I m not the best judge of their service.

Laundry: Not the nicest and costs $1.50 a load, which I think is a lot. But I deal with it by only watching my clothes monthly (I have a lot of clothes).

Apartment Condition: Our apartment is comfortable, at move in the carpet, which had been cleaned, still was older and had various light stains on it. No bathroom vent/fan makes for humid showers. My apartment was attractive and apparently I had one of the nicer apartments in terms of the condition it was in. The location of the apartment complex was very convenient for school and shopping.

Pests: We haven t had a problem with mice. The main insect we ve had has been 20-30 stinkbugs since move-in; the other, more disconcerting, has been 7-8 American cockroaches I have found on the kitchen counter. The cockroaches have NOT been everywhere and I spray them with a Lysol cleaning agent, which kills them and then I dispose of them. However, you (unfortunately) are going to have a roach or two wherever you live if it's an apartment, so that's not too out of the ordinary. I never had a moving floor of pests or anything
I think the main concern with pests is how clean you keep the apartment (you control) and how well the people in preceding you did (you can t control or know). Friends of mine (in Estate and other floors of the Manor) have said that they have had serious problems with finding a dead mouse after Christmas break or recurrently seeing roaches when they turn their lights on. This problem seems to be localized to areas of the complex, though I don t know how you would know if your future apartment is relatively pest-free or if you would have a lot of problems with pests.

Electric: Our electric bill has been average of $5.00 a month, not joking. A friend of mine a few floors down says that her bill is $50 a month. We would estimate that we use similar amounts of electricity. I m not really sure how they calculate everything out, but it works for me.

Heat/Smells: Somehow the heating went down this winter at one time and they were working on fixing it for a couple days. I live on an upper floor and heat rises, so the coldest my apartment got was around 65. Other than that, my apartment was probably around 72-76 degrees all winter. Keep in mind that I m on an upper floor and our windows face south so we get a decent amount of radiant heat.
The vent in my kitchen blows air in as well, and sometimes it does smell strongly like fish or cigarette smoke. Also, the lobby does smell like rotten bacon sometimes.
However my bedroom window has a nice breeze, which is quite nice. Closer to ground floor I might imagine breezes might be marred with cigarette smoke'

Water: Generally I take showers at night 10-11 pm, so I don t experience the morning rush for water (if there is one). The only time there was no hot water was when I tried to take a shower on a Sunday morning.

Pool/Fitness Area: The outdoor pool was nice, but cool when I used it once in early September. Unfortunately, it looks like a lake from mid-September to mid-April, but I don't see how you could prohibit that.
I have not even seen the indoor pool or fitness center; I hear they are not nice, though I would have to check them out for myself to give a definitive opinion.

Reason for Moving: I moved out because I found a new roommate and she had a lease elsewhere. I probably wouldn't have moved out if that hadn't been the case, but I would be hesistant to move in again, not knowing what I would get.

General Experience: Do I think Luxury is an overstatement' Yes. The Colonade is not luxurious, but my problems have been minor and I keep a good attitude, so a good experience overall.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/06/2007
I just moved out 8/31. I would generally agree with this reviewer. I was on the 10th floor of the Estate building. I did not see a single roach, mouse, ant, or other insect the 13 months I was there. The employees/maintenance were always nice and helpful to me. I had no trouble with students. (I'm in my 40s.) All were very respectful. I didn't hear loud music or parties. My biggest problem was not being able to control the heat or a/c in my apt. It was suffocating when the heat was on. I could not live another winter without the ability to turn down the heat if I wanted to. 'Luxury' apt. is a stretch. But my apt was decent (the pink tiled bathroom/tub/toilet took a little getting used to! Hadn't seen that since the 70s!)
From: Anonymous	Date: 07/19/2008
The Estate building is horrible... and what the hell you got 30 pairs of underwear or socks or you wear the same ones everyday? That's a lot of clothes to wash at the end of the month. THE COLONDADE IS WACK!!! DON'T LIVE HERE EVER!

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