The apartment was great the whole time I lived there. The pool is nice, the grounds are kept well, and the maintenance is pretty fast to fix complaints. However, our concrete was never power-washed on the landings. Bird droppings and other stuff remained in our common area until one of my neighbors finally broke down and cleaned it herself.
When I moved out, the apartment was extremely clean. Cleaner, in fact, than when I moved in. Two of us spent about eight hours cleaning. I caused zero damage to the apartment.
I wish I would have taken pictures, because a large portion of my deposit was held back because it "wasn't clean enough." Also, state law calls for a detailed statement about any withholdings from the deposit. My statement left much to be desired in the category of "detailed."