I have to agree with whoever wrote "7 years of mediocrity". I've been here even longer, also because of overall laziness (and I keep thinking I might leave town soon and want to spare myself an extra move), but I finally crossed the line from "give me an excuse not to move" to "give me an excuse to move", and I'm moving to a slightly less crappy and bigger place down the street.

This is the cheapest place in the area, for good reason. It's one of the oldest by a good margin, and one of the most poorly maintained. I can't believe it has higher ratings than some of the other much newer places down the street, but some of those reviews look pretty fake.

The property is in crappy shape. Although there is parking right in front of my door, I'm afraid to park there because every once in a while a big limb will come down from one of the trees and land on the cars. And I can't park across the way because the antique wooden fence is sagging and I wouldn't want to risk *that* coming down on my car either. And their lawn maintenance people keep running over the sprinklers, so they keep pouring out water, which of course winds up on our water bill.

They just did a "facelift", redoing the building exteriors (probably an excuse to raise rents). New siding and trim, new paint. Too bad they used UNFINISHED LUMBER for the trim! I can't let my hand touch my own doorframe when I come in and out of my apartment because it is absolutely furry with splinters. Splinters covered in glossy paint, but splinters all the same (up to 1/2" long, and more than 50 of them per square inch). And they painted right over rust (and holes) in the iron fencing/gates around the pool. That's not a facelift, that's a temporary botox injection.

I have to say I've had pretty good luck with bugs (I've only seen one roach, ever, and a few silverfish per year), but right now I have RATS!! On the second floor!! What the hell'' (Update: I talked to one of the neighbors who was moving out the same time I was; he'd complained to the management and all they did was hand him a couple of sticky traps. He thinks they invaded when the wood retaining walls were replaced with stone, and that makes sense to me. I think they were getting into my apartment from under the dishwasher.)

The neighborhood has really gone downhill over the last 10 years. Used to be mostly Dell employees and ACC students. Now it's entire families living (illegally) in 1-bedroom apartments, which means population density is way up and income per capita is way down. Definitely not the same place I moved into. Lots more incidents involving cop cars out in the parking lot. Lots more teenagers hanging around outside at 11 PM. Lots more noise. And the place next door (I think it's Water's Edge, the place with the big tall windows anyway) is no better--they're gated, so their scumbag friends park in OUR lot and kick their way through the decrepit fence. (The duplexes next door are also scary, but they've been scary since I first moved in, so I can't complain too much.)

They seem to have fairly high management turnover. With major changes to management come major screwups too, like the time I came home from vacation to find an eviction notice because the old management company hadn't passed on my credit card info to the new management company (not that we'd even been told there would be a change in management). Or the time they switched water billing companies and threatened ALL of us with eviction (I don't think that was even legal for them to do) unless we could prove we'd paid our water bills. I don't think I'm allowed to use the words that come to mind on this forum.

Outside lights get broken frequently. Not a good sign.

My final straw for moving wasn't that big a deal, but that's how final straws go. We had an oral agreement for my contract for the next year, which was incorporated in my lease, and then when they went to sign the lease they reneged on it, denying that that's what they had agreed to and claiming it was an error. The provision in question wasn't a very big deal, but the lack of good-faith dealings was not something I wanted to put up with any more.

I will say (in response to another comment) that I haven't had any personal trouble with the maintenance people. I only recognize one maintenance guy but he seems pretty nice.

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