Review History for altzen

Pines Apartments


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altzen

Resident 1998 - 2002

1/10/2003

We lived in this apartment complex for four years, starting in November of 1998. The original apartment manager we had was great. But they seemed to have trouble keeping one person, because they changed managers every year. <br><br> <br><br>The second apartment manager we had was a college student who had no clue about the responsibility she had undertaken and often left her equally clueless roommate to "take messages" from tenants who had "concerns". When no one is available to answer the main line, calls are forward to Arbor Glen, where the staff will not answer any questions and only "take messages" which are never returned. After the original apartment manager, it was the norm to hire college students who did not have the time or ability to effectively manage the units. They were just looking for free or discounted rent. <br><br> <br><br>This is a DTN property. You should note that when deciding whether or not to live there. In the four years we lived there, the rent was raised every year. The first two years, this made sense, as they replaced the siding (which now intermittently blows off of the buildings becaue they did a poor job), repainted the balconies and replaced some of the original plumbing. The year we decided to move, however, they raised the rent by $50/month for absolutely no reason. When we moved in, rent for a two bedroom, third floor apartment was $620/mth. If we had not moved, the next year´s renewal would have been $740/mth. <br><br> <br><br>Once every four months or so, DTN would conveniently "lose" our rent or apply it to someone else´s apartment, resulting in frightening eviction notices that were later "cleared up" by frequent calls to the main office. You will consistently receive conflicting information from representatives at the main office or the apartment manager, depending on who you talk to. <br><br> <br><br>The lease agreement is screwy. You agree to a twelve month lease, but you do not have to pay the final month of your lease, as this amount is divided up over the other eleven months, raising your rent by approximately $50-$65/mth. There are no exceptions to this rule. <br><br> <br><br>Maintenance was decent, but for any jobs requiring more than a toilet plunge or things they had parts to fix right away, good luck. As noted in the previous review, the current maintenance man, Walt, is very cool and friendly. If you decide to move in there, be good to him and he will go out of his way to help you however he can. Despite that, we had several severe maintenance issues during our tenure. The motor on our ACU went out after some bees built a hive in there. It took them a month (in July) to resolve the issue. Our dishwasher broke consistently and it took them two years worth of short-term repairs before they decided to replace the model, which had been installed in the early 80´s when they built the units. The laundry machines are often broken and the complex will also periodically turn the water off without notice. There was a problem in our building with the pilot light going out in the furnace. If this happened in the middle of the night, it was often not addressed until the next day. The main "security door" of our building was broken off and on for two years, allowing anyone access to the building. During a fall windstorm, one of the gutters was blown off of one of the buildings adjacent to main parking, hit a car, and broke through someone´s windshield. DTN would not pay for the damage. Two years ago, after a heavy snowfall, the company who plowed the lot shoved a bunch of snow into the fence bordering the north end of the parking lot, knocking it over and destroying it. Despite regular inquiries, to the best of my knowledge, this has not yet been fixed. There was also a rash of parking lot break-ins at the unit. I had three windows and a doorhandle broken on my vehicle, as well as getting the stereo stolen. <br><br> <br><br>If you decide to move here, DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, take a unit in the basement. There is insufficient water sealant around the foundation and the buildings are situated in such a way that any runoff will flood the below-ground floors. The downstairs hallway carpet and floors in the laundry/storage areas are usually wet, so be careful about walking down there in bare feet. One year there was sufficient spring rain that the entire lower level flooded with three inches of water. One apartment´s tenants asked for a rent waiver for that month, as much of their property that had been on the floor was destroyed, and DTN´s solution to the water damage was to pull up all of the carpet and put enormous fans all around their apartment, where they sat for three weeks. DTN refused a rent waiver, and the tenants sued. They won, but moved out shortly afterward. <br><br> <br><br>When we first moved in, this was a quiet rental community that catered to the elderly. They constituted a bulk of the tenants, followed by small working families, and a handful of carefully screened college students. That screening process has since been thrown out, and the complex is now at least 60% college students. <br><br> <br><br>As a result of being built as a retirement-type property, the parking is EXTREMELY poor. Get a carport. You will have trouble with general parking if you come home later in the evening, especially in the winter time. The plow trucks consistently block the northern four to eight general parking spots with snow they just shove against a fence and don´t bother to clear from the lot. Having the carport, however, is no guarantee that someone else will not park there. There are also several unmoving junk cars on the lot that sit around as garish eye sores. Since they have "current plates", DTN will not force the owners to have them towed, so they sit in the lot, collecting dirt, garbage and brush underneath. <br><br> <br><br>This apartments are preferable to many of DTN´s student ghettos, and they ARE very large. The third floor apartments are 920 square feet. The master bedroom is good-sized, has phone and cable jacks and a *very* large closet with shelves running up the left side. The second bedroom is all right, but kind of small and has no phone or cable jacks unless they were installed by previous tenants. The living room, dining room and kitchen are huge. The floorplan if very open, however the cable jack is in a strange location and it´s hard to situate your furniture without wires going everywhere. There is a *ton* of cabinet space in the kitchen and also a full-sized pantry. The water pressure is *very* good. For the first three years, every unit had a chandelier. They replaced those last year with ceiling fans. All utilities are free except phone/electricity/cable. There is no fee for garbage pick-up. Luckily, you don´t have to pay heat, as the windows and walls are poorly insulated and drafty, but electricity bills will get astronomical in the summertime due that same fact. The ACU´s will cool the main areas of your apartment, and quickly, but they are not very efficient. The bedrooms, at least in our apartment, were either very, very hot or very, very cold. <br><br> <br><br>Also, if you live on the north side of the complex, anticipate being woken in the wee hours of the morning by parking lot traffic and the high-pitched siren songs of Granger coming to empty the dumpster. If you live anywhere in the complex, but especially the south side, the East Lansing fire department is two lots down from the complex and there is a lot of noise when they deploy the fire trucks. Despite the poor outside insulation, the interior insulation was incredible. In four years, I think we MIGHT have heard the neighbors we shared a wall with four or five times. <br><br> <br><br>For us, the final decision to move was that the rent became too high. We are now renting in some very nice townhomes in south Lansing for $705/mth. They are tri-level, 1380 square feet, have washer/dryer hookups, half or fully finished basements, central air, tons of closet space, and one and a half baths. Please realize that there are other, much cheaper options just outside of East Lansing and away from DTN. <br><br> <br><br>Overall, this is not a bad place to live. The location is excellent, the units are spacious, and the general conditions are decent. Just hope to God that nothing breaks, nothing goes wrong, and you don´t have to talk to anyone from the management company.

    Review 23 out of 24

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