Review for Rancho Carrera Apartments

Lived there a year, very poor place. They won't let you see your real apartment before moving in. They only show you a 'model' apartment that looks nothing like the 'real' apartment. The office & model apartment are beautiful, but it's a con to lure you into the building. The fitness center is FILTHY and the machines are broken half of the time. The pool is full of loud drunken people most of the summer. By Santa Fe law 30% of the tenents must be 'low income' residents, so you get alot of urchins living there. Low income people tend to have alot of FRIENDS that like to hang around the property all day (if I'm not mistaken I saw a small drug deal transaction take place, but I can't say for sure). It also seems that some people rent an apartment there and then 'sublet' it to illegal aliens. I don't know if this is done with the knowledge of the staff, but they seem to turn a blind eye to it. Also, just before I left a guy there MURDERED his girlfriend (You can look it up in the local newspapers, he apparently beat her over the head with a booze bottle). This person had a previous conviction for abuse & had multiple drunk driving arrests & convictions, yet somehow he passed the background check (very strange). Plus it's near the 599 bypass and if you sleep with your windows open in the summer you can hear the trucks roaring by on the highway all night. There is a 24 hour gas station right across the street, they sell booze & tend to attract an undesireable crowd at night. In addition the carpet was old & threadbare. The fireplace is tiny and tends to leak smoke back into the apartment. The owners, a company called SENTINEL wanted to convert the apartments into 'condos' but since the real estate market was crashing that didn't happen. I understand that they are currently trying to sell the property. The staff was nice but mostly incompetent. Overall it was a very bad experience.