Me and my wife moved into Bancroft Hall due to a small window of time to find an apartment, and it being in a nice area. Boy do I wish we spent a little more time on this decision.

Upon arrival they show you a very nice house. Freshly painted, new carpets, new bathroom utilities, everything. Then after you accept the lease on the actual apartment you are getting, you start to realize that little things are wrong. The linoleum flooring had been painted over to give us the quick appearance that it was new and in good shape. The hot water heater accumulated heat extremeley quickly, the air ducts clogged in about a month to the point of no air on the second floor, and cabinets and doors started just plain breaking.

So upon first apperance you think the place is great like the model, you accept your lease, and then things fall apart. The heat in the bottom of my floor may be 68 degrees, by then upstairs it will be 90, literally. They do NOT attempt to fix it. They said it's our choice to put so much stuff in a room with only one vent. It just so happens that room is a bedroom. I put stuff in my bedroom, I'm sorry.

We've had an ant infestation... and I do mean an infestation. We've had cockroaches, spiders... pretty much everything except mice.

The maintenance response times have been slow, and they want to charge you for everything you need repaired. "Well it was fine when you came in, you signed to say it was." As if I was supposed to get a mechanic to look at my air condition, or a carpenter to look at the shoddy cabinets.

There is nothing good about these apartments. They charge you way too much for rent, and they give you nothing in return.

There is no such thing as reserved spots, which leads to nightmares on Friday and Saturday nights when everyone has friends over. When I can't park in the same court area as my house, much less have to cross streets- it's getting ridiculous. I work late, and when I am getting home at 7:00 PM and all the spots are gone, you should think about setting something up to organize it. Especially when people have cars that don't even run in spots.

The washer and driers are $1.50 a load without hookups in your house. I think that's a little pricey, but I haven't dealt with that at other locations I've always had in unit appliances.

We had a HUGE waterline on our upstairs ceiling because of water leaking through. The cause of this was because when re-roofing.. they DIDN'T COVER UP THE AREA WHERE THE TILES WERE UP. So we have a huge waterleak in our apartment dripping all over our belongings. To make it even worse, a while later the tiles started flying off the roof in a windstorm because the maintenance people were too lazy to bring the excess tiles down. They flew right into the parking lot and damaged a very large number of resident's cars. No attempt was made to right anything, and they have claimed that they take no accountability for things that happen in their parking lots. EVEN IF IT'S 100% THEIR FAULT.

If you don't believe this review or any other negative review... just ask one of the tennants when you're walking up to take a look. I guarentee you everyone will tell you to take your money and find another place.

Bancroft hall can be described as overpriced, uncared for, and an absolute last resort. If bancroft hall were the last apartment with an opening anywhere in Virginia Beach I would seriously rather live 30 minutes away just so I wouldn't have to live here anymore.

Thank God I'm finally out.

User Responses
From: lightnluvli2003	Date: 06/15/2008
well, i can say i'm right there with ya!! i totally regret moving here. at first i was ok because they fortunately for us fixed stuff pretty quickly. but now it seems these apts are just old and falling apart! there is one thing after another that goes wrong. i swear as soon as they fix one thing another goes wrong litteraly!and we too have had all the same problems you have had from the leaking roof to bugs and spiders acept for the painted floors.but they did paint our stove to cover up the old i assume messed up appearance of the old stove. it also had the wrong knobs on the stove and oven. had no idea what temp the oven was on. had to guess.and the paint was horribly staining the stove top because the paint was burning and leaving a funny smell in out apt when we cooked. we had to call great atlantic and make them come out and see to get a new stove. our latest prolem is the air. while it was in the low 100's my apt thermastat never went under 80-83 and i was told that was the best my air condition will do, it was running as hard as it could and basically cannot keep up with the heat. i asked if it could be the thermastat and was told it was not and this was the best we would get. can i just say WOW!!! i have never lived in an apt where the air or heat didn't get down to where i had it set and shut off at that temp and cut back on when it gets above or belw the temp you set it at. and i may add that the thermastat was set at 70 and i got my new electric bill and it was $138. $50 higher than my previous which was a full month of air on before it had gotten sooo hot but was still in the 80's and a few days in the lower 90's.the air would stay on and not cut off till really late at night.so i guess we will have a GREAT summer to look forward to.lucky us. we also had some animals (assume squirrels)living in the air ducts that would fight in them and wake me up every night. they had to put out some poison and when they finally died the apt smelled horribly of dead animal and my neighbor said he had the same problem.how's that for fine living. this is my first exprience living in va beach and not a good one i must add.
From: nitty1015	Date: 03/29/2009
Well these complaints are common for Great Atlantic properties. So stay away from them all. This management company is one of the worst companies out there, if not the worst. They have a horrible reputation in the Hampton Roads area, they get their money and do nothing to keep up their communities.

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