I've been living here since September 2011; at first I thought this was a rather nice apartment complex, with staff that seemed to care and were willing to help. The amenities are certainly nice, with two large pools, tennis & volleyball courts, and
canoe rentals to use in Jay Blanchard Park to which there's easy access. It's a little noisy at times, but that's somewhat to be expected for a place that advertises itself as housing for students attending UCF (which is about 5 minutes away).
However, during the time I've been here, I've had one problem after another with the apartment staff and complex. To complicate these problems, they have a frequent habit of closing their office before the posted hours with little to no notice whatsoever. Never expect them to remain open until 6 PM on a weekday as they say they will - they'll often close as early as 5:30, 5, or 4:30 without warning.
I've had a few maintenance problems that needed to be dealt with; each time, I've filed a report on their website, and a few days later noticed that maintenance had left a note claiming the problem to be fixed. The problem is never fixed the first time, though, so I'm obligated to arrange to work from home so I can be present when the maintenance guy shows up to make sure he does his job.
Last week, my fiancee's car was broken into (with all the windows on one side smashed in) while it was parked in the guest parking area - one of 11 cars that evening. While police were called, the apartment staff showed little sympathy towards us getting her car moved to a more secure location (we were in the process of getting her officially moved in), and refused to provide us with even a temporary parking pass even though we were clearly working to provide them with all necessary paperwork. In addition we have seen no added security or any attempt at all from the apartment staff to protect our cars.
Which leads to my final problem, which is the staff service. Both when I moved in and when we applied for my fiancee to move in, we found that they have a bad habit of not mentioning all of the details you need to know. For example, your first two month's rent (half of which is a security deposit) must be paid with a money order; all tenant's names must be on the insurance policy in order for it to be valid; you must get certain paperwork notarized before they'll accept it. Each of these issues we did not know about until they went to look and found that the paperwork in question was missing. If they'd told us all this up front, we'd have saved a great deal of everyone's time.
To make matters worse, they have very poor records for billing charges and processing fees. Only the owner's representative has access to any financial records, apparently, and she does not have regular hours. My fiancee and I thought that we had paid her application fees to have her moved in, but when we went (the fifth time) to get her key and parking permit, we were told that the fees had not been paid, and the balance on our account was ten dollars more than the fees themselves. They were unable to tell us what the extra ten dollars were for or why the rest of it hadn't been charged as expected because they didn't have access to those records. When we started asking about it the staff got upset and threatened to not give my fiancee her key and parking decal.
On the whole, this does look like a very nice apartment complex and isn't bad, but the more you have to deal with the staff the worse your experience will be.
I rented from fall 10 through fall 11.
...
2.3/5.0
01/18/2008
3.2/5.0
05/17/2007
The apartment themselves are great but the management absolutely SUCKS!!!!! They are rude, unresponsive, and incompetent. I would not recommend living here b/c although you pay your rent on time, they will send you notices saying 5 months prior you were
late and you owe late charges! When you try to speak w/ someone they pawn you off to someone else. Written correspondence is necessary to make sure you have proof of all that happens.
I rented from fall '05 through summer '07.
...