Review History for formerResident101

Aurora Village Apartments


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formerResident101

Resident 2003 - 2008

5/2/2008

I lived in Aurora Village apartments for about 5 years- from 2003 until 2008. Overall I was very happy with the apartment and the area. Pros: The apartments are very spacious - around 1200 square feet while being very affordable. You would be hard pressed to find an apartment as large anywhere- even among high priced luxury apartments. There are 4 apartments to a building- 2 on each of the 2 floors. They all have the same floorplan (2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths), but the ground floor apartments are slightly smaller due to some floorspace lost due to a common area hallway that runs from the front door to the back of the building. You will notice the lost floorspace in the dining room and the master bedroom when you compare to one on the second floor. I chose a second floor apartment. The location is great- just outside the village of East Aurora and it is very quiet (which was important to me) with pleasant views. Mostly working families and retired people- no partying college kids. If you take a right out the driveway, you are in the countryside with wooded hills. Take a left and you are in the village. Best of both worlds. East Aurora is on the upscale side so there is almost no crime- no worries about theft or vandalism. And the local schools are excellent (important if you have kids). The onsite leasing agents who show the apartments (vacant ones if any are ready or their own if not) - Jim and Mary Anne Balling- are both very nice and will let you in your apartment if you lock yourself out. Another extremely nice woman in the same building as the Ballings- Suzanne - takes it upon herself to do some landscaping around her building- planting flowers and decorating- generally makes things more homey and pleasant. She is a fixture in the apartment community and knows almost everybody- its nice to have somebody wave and say hi to when you are coming and going and engage in some smalltalk (Thanks Suzanne, Jim and Mary Anne). Parking is generally not a problem. If you live in one of the middle buildings (the complex is 10 buildings arranged in a roughly horseshoe pattern- open side away from the road) you might have to walk a short distance. I only had one minor annoyance with one couple who parked 3 or 4 vehicles - one of them with government plates - I assume it was a work vehicle. They tended to camp out in the prime spots. It would have been better if management had required them to rent garage space in one of the onsite garages for one of their vehicles. But, hey, life is never perfect when you're living in an apartment, and even at its worst, you never have to walk far from your car to your apartment. Maintenance was very good, they arrived in a timely fashion after calling and got the job done. Cons: The only significant downside to living at Aurora Village was that the buildings are somewhat older- they were built during the 1960's. There are a couple of consequences from this: One is no air conditioning. This is generally not a problem most of the year in the Buffalo area, but there is usually a week or two in the summer when it can get pretty hot and humid. It is difficult to install your own window unit because the windows slide open horizontally and you are left with a large space above the air conditioner that has to be filled with plywood or something. Some residents managed to jury rig something, but it didn't look very stable. I never got an AC unit myself, so I had to suffer through a few hot summer nights. Its not too bad because the window in the living room and the one in the dining room are directly opposite each other and it creates a nice cross breeze. If you don't spring for the AC, resign yourself to keeping your windows open and fan running most of the time during the summer. Another consequence of the buildings being older was that the windows weren't in the best shape. In the wintertime, these windows leak heat almost like they were wide open. The small window in the shower in the main bathroom always had about an inch of ice on it. The others were somewhat drafty. They really should be replaced. Your heating bills in Winter (electric heat) will likely be a bit higher than they should be. Also a few other minor problems you could probably guess would be in an older building- squeaky floorboards and musty smelling basements. But I think all of this is generally factored in to the rent, which is pretty reasonable ($715/month- which you can lower if you sign a 1 year lease- I had 6 month leases, and then was going month-to-month towards the end). Also, to be fair, it seems the owners are putting some money into upgrading. For each of the past couple of years in the summer, 2 of the buildings per year have gotten new roofs. Hopefully they continue to invest in the property. The property manager (from National Property Management) seemed to be a bit of a revolving door position- there were several during my time there so I never got to know any of them very well. It was sometimes difficult to get ahold of them by phone if you called the office (located 10-15 miles away in Hamburg). A lot of times you ended up getting the answering service even during the day. But they always called back within a day. Overall it was not much of a problem. One thing to watch out for- When I finally moved due to my company offering me a position in Florida, I made sure my apartment was pristine- clean and completely empty so I would get back my full security deposit. I scheduled a walk-through inspection with the property manager and was present when it occurred. She signed off on it and said I would be getting a full refund within a couple of weeks. I moved and 5-6 weeks went by with no check appearing in the mail. I called and the manager said it had been mailed a couple of weeks prior. She said she would look into it and call me back. After another week, I called again and she said they would have to reissue the check and charge me a fee of $30 to stop payment on the original check (I received the reissued check a few days later). Maybe an honest mistake or maybe a scheme to keep more of my money?? Given my positive experience in my years there, I accepted their word and gave them the benefit of the doubt. But if it happens to you too, definitely contest it and demand to see a receipt from their bank for the cancelled check fee. Once is an accident- more than once is probably a pattern. Anyways, I would recommend Aurora Village Apartments to anyone. For me the pros far outweighed the few and relatively minor cons. I would definitely live there again if I find myself in Western New York in the future.

    Review 3 out of 3

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