Preface: This is my last installment after three years of residence, and gives impressions throughout that time. I am a public school teacher, and after three years at Brittany Commons, my wife and I now own a home in the area.

Please remember that most people who get on the Internet to talk about their apartment living experiences are looking to vent and rant about how they've been wronged. Be objective in your evaluations, and always come out to see this place before you make a decision. You're only going to hear nightmares from people, and most of them didn't live here long. Here's one man's opinion who was very pleased with the property, having been a homeowner prior to renting, and having held and still holding very high expectations for my place of residence.

Part One - 2003

My wife and I have just moved in to the Phase III portion of Brittany Commons. We shopped around to nearly every other major apartment complex in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties, save Aquia Terrace which did not have any availability.

From the moment we stepped in the door at Brittany Commons, we knew it was different, and that we had found our new home.

The apartments are truly gorgeous. Yes, there are some signs that the construction is "mass manufactured," with some corners not perfectly square and some quarter-round along the toeboards to hide gaps, but one cannot question that the apartments are well made. The walls are not as soundproofed as one might like, but it?s nothing the usual apartment dweller isn?t used to. The windows, as with nearly all windows in Virginia, are lesser quality than this native New Yorker would like, but everything was clean and in order.

My viciously meticulous inspection of our unit prior to signing revealed a truly spotless place. Built in 2002, and lived in at least once in that time, I found the unit had been very carefully cleaned to a professional grade. Some crevices were not perfectly repainted, and there were a couple of tiny dings here and there, particularly in the steel front door, but no structural flaws or gross improprieties.

I am horrifically bug-phobic, and granted it is still winter, but I have seen no indications of pest problems. I was hard pressed to even find a single beneficial house spider, let alone anything else. (I have since my first inspection, found one spider, which was transplanted back outside.)

Our unit is a one bedroom with den in the newest section, Phase III, on the second floor. The apartment is huge, spacious, and gorgeous. All of the appliances are new and fully functional. The gas fireplace is a breeze and the environmental controls are state-of-the-art. Lighting and electrical wiring is well-laid-out and intelligently installed. Outlets are plentiful. Plumbing is good, for the most part. The low-volume flush toilets often require a second flush, but water is included, so hey, a couple extra seconds is no big deal. Water pressure is fine for all your hydrophiliacs out there. Ceiling fans appear in two of our rooms, though the one in the main room was not properly cleaned prior to move in. Allergy-prone individuals should be sure to inspect the apartment for thorough cleaning prior to move in, especially with high ceilings. Sometimes these things are overlooked, and that?s not a BC thing but a piece of advice for any apartment hunter.

The paint, as one reviewer did indicate, is a flat paint, and "cheap" is not the right word. Flat paint shows marring very easily, and a semigloss would have been a better choice maintenance-wise, but if you don?t go bumping into things often, you?ll be fine. Painting your own colors is not permitted, coincidentally, though the default earthtone-and-off-white scheme is far from offensive, even for eclectic or particular tastes.

The foyer areas outside each apartment, at least in Phase III, are large, airy, spacious, and VERY well lit with Mercury lamps that don?t buzz much and provide warm, safe lighting.

While we have neither pets nor children, the community appears very friendly to both.

Parking is, simply put, not a problem in Phase III. Be forewarned, however, that towing is apparently quite an issue here, something we found out very quickly. Be SURE to only park your vehicle in Visitor spots if you?re not bearing a Brittany Commons sticker.

Trash compactors are available in two locations, both of which are large and easily accessible.

Grounds are kept immaculately clean. The gates are a nice little "extra," though one has been broken since we got here and we still don?t have a code that opens them for us. (The code we have still doesn?t work... Could present a problem, but after the weekend, I?m sure we?ll work it out.)

We have a very positive outlook for our happiness here. The office staff has been friendly, supportive, helpful, and has gone above and beyond in every one of our many dealings with them up to this point. Sandy, our main representative, has been truly incredible with her flexibility, her enthusiasm, and her work ethic. We have also dealt with Amy, Barbara, and Tricia, all of whom have been informative, helpful, intelligent, and have represented BC very well. In short, we are most impressed with the office staff, and certainly expect that will continue.

In short, BC is not the cheapest place around, but it shows. There are a lot of pluses to this area. It?s INCREDIBLY centrally located, just ten minutes at the most from I-95, and within 2 minutes of groceries, banks, gas stations, food... Delivery is easy and readily available for most cuisines and palates. It?s a beautiful place to live, and while it is big, it is also very friendly. Our neighbors are terrific and seem to love it here.

I will be sure to follow-up with another review in six months or a year. In the meantime, feel free to email at keith@kdreeves.com if you have any questions about our experiences, or about this review.

Part Two - 2003

Follow up #1, 1/6/03: Regarding the gate issue, I popped in to see Patricia about the gate issue, and she and Amy got right on it, informed us they had been having some trouble with it, and gave us an alternative code to use in the meantime. Professional, friendly, and skilled, these people!!

Follow up #2, 1/8/03: Maintenance is simply not an issue here, folks. One day after turning in our move-in report, a very nice gentleman came up to our place and tweaked the slow-flushing toilet and recaulked a little separation on the computer desk that hardly warranted any attention. Other reviewers who said the staff doesn?t care either didn?t use proper channels, or must have dealt with their problems in another way... following the methods BC asks its residents to use resulted in immediate, effective, professional problem-solving.

Part Three - 2004

Follow up #3, 5/4/04: Five months and still the best apartment home you can imagine. My pilot light went out, and I gave a buzz to 24-hour emergency maintenance, not wanting to do it myself for fear of violating my renter's agreement. One of the maintenance staff, just the nicest and most competent guy, came straight over, and not only took care of the immediate problem - the pilot light on our water heater - but addressed the UNDERLYING problem, a draft coming around the exhaust pipe flange. He used a duct seal to temporarily fix the problem, and returned promptly the following morning to properly seal the drafts with expanding foam. This is the ONLY time I've had to call maintenance after the move-in touch-ups. I've put the heat and the A/C through the paces, and the apartment are very easy to keep comfortable no matter what's going on outside. Grounds are STUNNING in the spring, I've barbequed outside with our neighbors in the public areas, and I've had a friend come take a look and decide to move in. Several people have emailed from around the northeast, and I continue to invite anyone who would like to contact me with specific questions. I fervently believe the other reviewers had isolated or miscommunicated experiences, and were just looking to take their anger out in a public forum.

In short, Brittany Commons is the finest home in which I've ever lived, exceeding even the creature comforts of owning my own home. I cannot recommend this place highly enough, or the wonderful staff you will find here. Come visit!

Part Four - 2005

Follow up #5, 5/8/05: It's been just over a year since my last review, so I figured it's time for a revisiting. Not too much has changed! Our rent went up $30 this year, which considering that there's a new housing development across the street with homes starting in the half-million-dollar range, isn't too bad.

Only two maintenance issues have arisen in the past year. Firstly, the cabinets above my computer desk just randomly came off of the wall. They didn't fall completely down, but they did pull away from their supports, and I suppose it could have been a really big deal if there had been fragile materials underneath it or valuables within it, but luckily no harm done. I reported the issue to maintenance, and it took probably a week or so for them to come around and resecure it, but it was done securely, if not the prettiest repair job in the world. The second maintenance issue was mildewing caulk around the escutcheon in the shower. Now, we keep our shower clean, but mildewed caulk indicates a less-than-100% silicone composition to me, and that's not a smart plumbing decision. However, I simply retightened the escutcheon, razored off the old caulk, and reapplied a proper 100%-silicone sealant and poof, good as new. I could have called maintenance to do this, I'm sure, but I didn't want to wait a week with the potential for water damage behind the shower. We are on the second floor after all!

There was a hot tub when we moved in, but within the past year, it was removed due to a few residents using it for "inappropriate recreational activities." Well, that's not exactly how I'd have liked to see that handled. A surveillance camera would have been a great deterrent, or locking it late at night... removing it as an amenity seemed like a poor decision on the part of the management, but it doesn't particularly affect me. (I'm a Sagittarius. Water' No thanks!)

We did have a neighbor move in who, when she set her stereo against the wall adjoining our apartment, created quite a lot of noise, but after she relocated it, the problem was solved, indicating that yet again people simply need to use good community skills when living in close proximity. Our friends who moved from an upstairs apartment to a downstairs apartment indicate that living on the ground floor is, indeed, significantly louder in terms of upstairs foot traffic and general sound transfer than living on the second floor. If sound is a huge concern, given that information, I might recommend an upstairs apartment.

Our neighbors continue to be generally friendly, amiable, and pleasant.

There is another assisted living facility being built on Brittany Commons Boulevard that has caused some fairly irritating traffic and cable service interruptions for the past few months, but I expect that to decline once construction is complete.

Coincidentally, the front office has started putting balloons on the gates... and I think that's pretty cheesy, personally. If anybody from B.C. reads this... it doesn't say "classy place to live," it says "Bozo the clown works here." Not exactly the Cullen way, eh'

Anyways, overall, we still love it here, and can't imagine living anywhere else. The more friends I meet, the more places I visit, and the more apartments I experience in the greater Fredericksburg area... the happier I am to live at Brittany Commons.

Again, I continue to invite anyone to email me with "real world" questions and concerns if you're considering joining us!

By the way, two last notes after reading through all of these... Number one: If your car gets towed, it's probably your own fault. Don't park on the white lines, keep your sticker on your car, and keep your vehicle registered. Enough said. Number two: Any reviewer that insinuates that the office staff is less capable due to gender of all stupid things, as one of the charming and sexist reviews in here states, is a reviewer that I don't WANT to live near. The professionals in the front office are very capable and very easy to communicate with, and anyone who says otherwise is lacking communication skills.

Part Five - 2006 and Move Out

Well, after three years, a few things do stand clear in retrospect:

Firstly, the apartment aged fairly well in some ways. No window problems, no electrical problems, everything works the way it should. A few nail pops, the seam tape on the cathedral ceiling wasn't done particularly well and came loose in our third year, and the carpet... Well, the carpet is gross. I suppose it wasn't intended to be the highest quality carpet, and after three solid years of living on it, I suppose it's time for replacement. We were not charged a dime for the carpet, despite the fact that we cleaned and cleaned and cleaned the thing and it still wasn't clean. I assume that we weren't charged because it's assumed the carpet will wear out in the amount of time we lived there.

It was our only charge. We were told the entire remainder of our security deposit would be forwarded in 30 to 45 days. (That was almost a month ago, so we're still waiting, will update this when we do get it.) Move out was easy and simple, and as always, my girl Amy Rivenburg, the maintenance manager, had her head on her shoulders and did the job right.

I do have to say that as I reflect on the quality of the management overall that the office staff began as solid, together, responsible, and competent, and there did seem to be quite a backslide in organization and pro-customer orientation... except for maintenance. EVERY repair person and manager I dealt with was professional, capable, and effective in solving problems. I saw ZERO problems with the maintenance people. Front office staff... eh. I can see why some people aren't thrilled. No rocket science, and the new property manager doesn't seem to be seriously committed to keeping things as immaculate as they once were.

The gates still break regularly, a lot of the landscaping needs to be cut back, and for me, the big issue is the entryways of the apartment buildings themselves.

For us, our "alley" or "balcony" or whatever you want to call the entrance hall was never clean starting about a year and a half ago. Wasps like to next up in the far corners of many buildings, and from your reading, you know I'm not down with that. We also had Barn Swallows nesting in our building, 10208. Now, I'm a bird lover, so this was fine. Bonnie and Clyde were our parents, and we had four little Peepers hatch each of the last two summers. The nest and the birds was no biggie to me, but the MASSIVE amounts of bird droppings that went totally uncleaned and unattended for two summers save a single pre-winter cleaning last year was pretty unsightly.

Other than that, no problems... except our neighbor.

Now, I realize that the management can only do so much about this, but when we moved in, EVERYONE around us was a hardworking professional with at least half a brain. EVERYONE in our corridor was a decent person, and any little "hey would you minds" were always met with positive conversation and a peaceable resolution.

Not so with our last neighbor. Loud, scary, creepy, bigoted, and some seriously strange goings on. Constant reminders and notices hung on the door. We didn't feel safe living next to him, and it was our final indicator that the community really had taken a turn for the worse, so we elected to seriously pursue homeownership for the second time in our lives, and we're now thrilled in a gorgeous new community about 10 minutes from our old apartment.

It's not as clean as it used to be, the staff (again, with the HUGE exception of the awesome, awesome maintenance staff) isn't quite what it used to be, the neighbors aren't quite the caliber of person as they once were, and they seem to be putting more energy into putting up cheeseball Burma-Shave style advertising in the front yard than really scrubbing the place up.

If Beverly is serious about keeping the clientele up and restoring B.C.'s image as a "premiere gated community," she needs to get people to put their feet on the ground, cut back the overgrowth, powerwash the WHOLE PLACE, and start keeping up the upkeep.

That said, our rent went up once in three years by like forty bucks, and for a rental community, it was just fine. I've heard very few complaints from neighbors and from others about B.C. compared to some of the shadier, less-appointed places around.

Keep in mind my friends, this is a RENTAL PROPERTY. It's not a house. It's not built like a house. It'll never be totally silent. It'll never be everything you want it to be. It'll never be a seriously solidly-built luxury getaway like some cushy hotel. If you want the best out of housing, invest in your own property.

Rating-wise, I am downgrading a few things from the number of stars I gave them previously, because this isn't quite the place it used to be. As far as apartment complexes in the area go, it's still pretty darned nice, but there HAS been a slip since the new manager took over.

But if you're looking to rent, and you know what renting is like, if you're a serious tenant, you should consider B.C. It was a "nice" place to live, and while I look at my brand new home in Fredericksburg and think "how did we ever live any other way," I recall a time when I made a lot less money and needed a place to get started in Virginia.

Brittany Commons was our home for three years, and I'm glad it was.

User Responses
From: bonkelsmeeks_dallas	Date: 03/10/2006
This is ridiculous. Must have been written by the management company. I have written reviews for all the apartment complexes I have lived in and this has been the only one I was negative in. Also take a look at other complex's reviews. There are plenty that don't have this many NO's. People only want to vent - lame excuse for so many NO's!!
From: kdreeves	Date: 08/19/2006
In response to your comments, Bonk, the vast majority of the complaints here are about the front office staff and the maintenance. While I have conceded that the new manager hasn't done a stellar job of hiring a stellar new staff, and isn't a particularly amazing manager herself, EVERY comment about maintenance runs totally contrary to what I've experienced. I needed maintenance for two separate HVAC issues in three years and for a handful of little things around the property, some not even in my building but that I felt were worth bringing to their attention. ALWAYS fixed promptly, ALWAYS fixed correctly. Do I think there needs to be a little more emphasis on upkeep around the property? Yes, I do, and I think that some of the anger on the part of some residents is stemming from the poor office staff management... but compared to some of the other properties around Fred Vegas, good luck finding an apartment complex that tops B.C. in terms of the living space itself. I have a lot of friends in the area (Breezewood, Belmont, couple in Aquia, Greens, England Run...) and none of them have glowing things to say. An apartment is an apartment. I'll take the nicer one, thanks. (Well... not anymore. Now I'm a homeowner again. But that's only helped give me perspective on what was good and what was bad.) I always invite people to email. Change everything before the @ to kdr for my new address and drop a line if you're interested in discussing my experiences there.

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