I lived at Gila Springs for two years. It was a great apartment, and for the most part, I loved it. Two months after moving in, I wrote my first review for this complex, dated 4/25/2010. I had some solid reasons for moving out and my rankings now are slightly different, so I'm explaining why:
Parking: there's plenty of it, but if someone takes your reserved parking space, the other car won't get towed like it says in the lease. Instead I was told to park elsewhere and just check back later.
Noise: if you live on the first floor, expect to hear noise from the upstairs neighbors. At times, I wondered my upstairs neighbors were teaching a pair of gorillas to sumo wrestle!
Grounds: Nicely kept. The maintenance staff always do a nice job.
Safety: I never felt unsafe, however I'm expanding my definition of safety to more than "do I worry about getting mugged" Please read my first reason for leaving.
Construction: I was quite satisfied... just wish I hadn't heard so much of the upstairs neighbors.
Maintenance: Those guys are top-notch. Pete especially does an awesome job!
Staff: The office staff are nice as long as you don't have any disagreements. If a disagreement comes up, it is obvious they are more interested in protecting their own interests than getting to the truth.
Why I left: The first reason is that if anyone makes a complaint, it will be taken as truth, regardless of how much proof you may have indicating otherwise. I was told by a member of the office staff that if they received another complaint, it would not be investigated either but they would move to evict me, even though I was told in the same conversation that she didn't believe it and that I was a model tenant. I was told that if I lived on the first floor, that I had no expectation of privacy unless I chose to never open my blinds, and that she made it a habit to look in my windows whenever she went by. Obviously, that sucked a lot of the enjoyment from living there, knowing that anyone could come up with a story and get me evicted and that nobody would care what the truth was! The second reason was the rent. I had a 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment, advertised as being 988 sq feet. My first year's rent was $910. The second year it jumped to $991, and when I received my next lease renewal, they wanted over $1,000 for it. I felt that was overpriced, and had already decided if my lease renewal was a 4 digit number, I was moving. Those two reasons combined led me to move, and I've felt very good about that decision ever since.