We moved to Carlyle Place after a HORRIBLE experience at our last apartment. By time we left our old place we were jaded, cynical, and paranoid about safety. We'd resigned ourselves to finding a place just long enough to find a house because obviously, no apartment was going to give us what we were looking for!
This place is WONDERFUL. The master bedroom closet is practically large enough to sub-let. We have 2 people's clothes, our 3-bin laundry hamper and an elliptical machine in there and there's still room to move around on the floor. You could practically sublet this closet! The bathroom it is attached to his perfect. His & hers sink with plenty of countertop between, LOTS of lighting and a full-sized garden tub. No jacuzzi jets, but hey, I'll survive! The only problem is a lack of towel racks - they only give you ONE. We fixed that with a quick trip to Lowe's.
The kitchen, while seemingly small at first glance, tops just about every apartment I've seen (and we looked at A LOT). While it is narrow, it's long, and you get a good uninterrupted length of counter. Dual -steel- sink which is so much easier to clean than porcelain. The pantry's OK, nothing special, but with the sheer amount of cabinet space it hasn't been too much of an issue. I was amazed at having so much storage! The ONLY drawback is the W/D room - the water heater is on a shelf above the dryer and once you get a trash can in there it takes some interesting bending to get laundry done. It's a surprisingly large water heater and we've not once run out of hot water.
Staff is wonderful. So wonderful I felt to bake them goodies at Christmas! They know their residents (It's a smaller complex) and greet people by name. Maintenance requests are handled within 24-48hours. You can always come into the lobby for a free cookie (baked daily) or dog biscuit. They're VERY pet-friendly here - especially dogs. Unfortunately there's quite a few folks who don't clean up after their pooches, and who sometimes walk them off-leash, especially at the back along the golf-course fence.
While there isn't a lot in the way of landscaping past the lobby and pool area, many people have really gone to town with potted plants, which I've always taken as an indication of someone being there for the long-haul, as plants are so hard to move. It was a bit dim but they have recently installed bright xenon security lights on each building. I think it may be still somewhat dim around the pool area at night, however, but it seems like no matter what hour you go out there's always someone walking a dog so you never really feel totally "alone in the dark."
Best of all, this place is QUIET. I've only heard a car alarm go off once or twice during the last two months, and it was quickly silenced. There's almost no kids around the complex at all. The layouts in the 2/2s are done so that you only have one shared wall, and that's bathroom, closet, kitchen and second bedroom. We sometimes hear one of the neighbors walking up the stairs or the upstairs neighbor when they vacuum, but that's about it. If you live on the back you can sometimes hear the folks on the golf course, and they do get out their early in the morning with their groundskeeping, but even that isn't horribly intrusive.
We feel very secure here. There is only one gate in and out. Unfortunately it does seem to break about once every month or so, but only for a few hours. While the keypad may not work I think it continues to work if you have one of the remotes or you can go to the guest entrance and dial your apartment's number. If you have it set to go to your cellphone you can ring yourself in from there - so it's not like you're completely locked out. The gate is also monitored by CCTV in the lobby and takes both an entrance and exit code. Back doors have multiple locking mechanisms. The apartments also come with alarm systems built in that you can pay extra to activate.
They've now added an online system for paying bills and sending in maintenance requests. You can also do monthly automatic bill pay so you don't have to worry about remembering to pay the rent on time.
We were looking for a place that we could settle on for a year until we could afford a house - but now we're already considering renewing our lease for another year!

Manager's Response
From: Manager	Date: 05/21/2009
Thank you for your wonderful comments about Carlyle Place. We certainly appreciate your time to let everyone know about your experiences. We take great pride in our work for all our Carlyle Place family members. You are appreciated! Thank you!

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