I've been living at the Breakers for almost a 18mos. now and here are a few things I've observed.

Background: my wife and I have two small children and we are both college RN students. She is at COM (which is about two minutes away) and I am at UTMB. The location cannot be beat! Close to I-45 and school without being too "deep" in Texas City's seedier areas. We love our apartment and are considering staying for at least a few more years. We were looking for quite and safe...we've found that here. There are some things that bug us, but for the price...you just have to understand that you get what you pay for.

Safety: FOR THE MOST PART, there isn't problems with safety that most other apartments (even pricier ones) wouldn't have. It's up to you to stay smart. There have been a rash of vehicle break-ins near our building, but usually, they are older vehicles with visible aftermarket equipment. I have one of the higher-end vehicles in our parking area, but since its mostly stock and we don't leave anything in it overnight, we haven't been touched. There are a few cops in the complex, I think one in particular works for the management. They keep the riff-raff at bay, but sometimes the one particular cop boarders on harassment. He seems more preoccupied with ticketing residents than protecting resident and management interests. He's also a bit "friendly" with the women. One thing that bothers me is the speed at which certain residents/guests go through the back end of the property. Having small kids, this worries me. This is a behavior I've not seen changed with the addition of the cop-dude. Another is the blatant disregard for traffic lanes BY ALMOST EVERY RESIDENT near the front of the appts. I was almost t-boned one time because of this. Still...no change.

Management: really nice, both before you move in and even after. Through I get the impression they aren't as nice and respectful to problem tenets. This I like. It keeps the place clean. I love every time I see the cops arresting someone because I know that's another drug-dealer, etc. removed from the apartment resident pool. That being said, I get the impression that the owners are pretty cheap. I'll discuss this in detail below.

Maintenance: This is perhaps the greatest Achilles heel of the apartment complex. Before I explain, I concede that they are polite, extremely fast, and very knowledgeable. The problem I think lies in the cheapness of the owners. The maint-guys rarely ever "fix" a problem. More often they so some sort of rigged repair that will get it though until you complain again. These are old apartments so there are maint-issues often. Sometimes I feel like if they'd fix it right to begin with, much of their workload would diminish. For instance, our shower diverter valve has to be replaced avery 3-4 weeks. The appts choose to replace the part at $12 bucks a pop rather than replace the diverter all together. This would eliminate the problem. Another issue is with the AC's. If you have problems, they'll quickly come out and recharge the refrigerant but, they wont troubleshoot the leak that caused the call in the first place. We just have to call every two months and it's fine. Also, they pay NO attention to cosmetics or aesthetics when performing repairs. I don't WANT to live in a place that looks like a dump. For this reason, I've resigned to doing many small repairs on my own because I take pride in the place I live. Once again, I think this is mostly a product of "cheap" ownership.

Neighbors: I'm not sure if this is a matter of luck or not, but we love all of our neighbors. They are great. Because of the apartments proximity to the freeway, many of the residents are small families, students, and such. We haven't had problems with noise at all. We just got new neighbors upstairs though. Even though we hardly heard the footsteps, etc of our last above unit neighbors, this set seems to be much louder. Not sure why, but it was a bit irritating at first. Now that they've settled into the apartment we hear them much less now. I've heard of others tenets not being so lucky.

Amenities: we actually use the pool quite a bit. It's nice. The hot-tub doesn't work and there are no plans to fix it. It's a "kiddie pool" now. Again, "cheap" owners. The pool light has an electrical ground. you can feel the electrical field about 6 inches away. Some residents say that it shocks you. As a former electrician, I know this is not the case...electricity doesn't work that way. It would be nice to see it fixed. What perplexes me is knowing that constant electrical ground is costing the owners big $$ in constant electrical usage, yet they don't fix it''' The apartment has a gate in the back and DID have a gate in the front. The front on was removed after it broke-down (again..cheap). The back one breaks every once in awhile. I think it's due to residents trying to go through it the wrong way. It's an exit only gate. There is a hole in the fence near the back gate that I've seen people pass through (both ways). I think it's not being fixed because it's the only access to a school system buss stop. The complex on their other side of the fence used to be sec-8 and was pretty seedy until Ike nearly destroyed them. They've been doing construction on them, bringing the quality up a bit. Hopefully, the quality of resident increases with it. If thats the case, the fence hole won't bother me as much. The gym and common area are largely useless, so I cannot comment on them. I think you have to pay a $25 fee for the gym key''' It's more of a value to work out at the college with a much larger gym.

All in all we love the place. Having lived in worse before for much more money, we appreciate the Breakers, even with all of their nuances. It would be nice to see some refinement...but I can't complain. You get what you pay for.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates