Okay, here's my beef with Orchard:
- The management is wonderful, and the community isn't too bad, however, the community BEHIND it makes it into Ghettoland. In order to access the eyesore of the apartments behind Orchard, the residents of that community must pass thru Orchard, inevitably making it as undesirable as its own. Seriously. Living in one of the back buildings was horrible, and (as a military family) we broke our lease early and moved as I was too afraid to be there by myself when my husband deploys. Here are some of our negative experiences
-A GUNSHOT woke us up two or three nights within a matter of a week. The shot was fired from DIRECTLY behind our building.
-A string of burglaries in the area occurring during the DAYTIME, specifically targeting military families (as they are gone a good part of the day).
-Our neighbors car, which was parked in the covered parking NEXT to our new car had the back window smashed in and his military uniforms and back pack taken from the car.
-The lighting in the parking lot was not good, or on the outside of the buildings. I was always weary.
-Some of the neighbors loitered around in the parking lot at all hours of the night, blaring music and drinking. The windows were only one paned, therefore you could hear everything they were saying and doing. It was very unsettling.
-When we moved into the apartment, it had not been cleaned. The previous resident's dishes were still in the dishwasher, and the toilet had not been flushed. It was so filthy, I spent our first weekend there bleaching the entire place down and complaining to management.
-Parking was a nightmare. It was very limited and there were many issues in the unmarked spaces. There were several nights we had to park a few buildings over and walk to our building, which I found frustrating and unsafe for a young female to have to do by herself.
-We had some maintenance issues, and they were never addressed. I called the after hours beeper and the main office, and nothing happened. I never once got a return call or help with our issue. Luckily, my husband managed to fix it. It's a good thing too, otherwise we would have been screwed.

However, The pros:
The fitness center was actually very nice. The guesthouse and main building were well taken care of, and the tanning bed was a huge plus.
The staff was very kind. Ashley and Linda are very sweet people, and despite the negatives, truly cared about the residents.
There is a community newsletter and contests, which was a nice touch.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/04/2009
Hello. I am a single 23 year old woman planning on separating from the military and moving to Tacoma/University. I have found that there is no such thing as a good review and or that reason I am trying to weed through them all and find the ones that aren't as bad. The one you wrote is frightening, but i'm wondering is there any place that you would suggest I look at? I've looked at everything from floorplans and photos, to how close they apartments are to schools, shopping and transportation and this one seemed like a good catch. Anyhow, any advise would be much appreciated. Thanks.
From: NightOwl2009	Date: 02/24/2009
to the 23 yr old single female-i strongly urge you to consider alpine vistas. it's not extremely fancy, but as a single female, i can tell you i feel extremely safe here and have never had any problems here. loud music, loitering and/or suspicious looking people are quickly addressed. i'm not saying the place is perfect, but it is a far cry from some of the other places that i've been reading about. btw, i've lived here for nearly 6 years-never a major problem-safety or otherwise.

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