I lived @ Veranda for just over a year. Most of the office staff was friendly but for the amount of vermin/pest that I had to tolerate, they could have been more reasonable about things. Every bug known to man can be found at Veranda! This is probably due in part to the fact that the complex is very close to the Chatt. River and too, because the buildings are terribly old. They will come out and spray on a weekly basis, but I was not satisfied that they would not do more to investigate and combat a more serious pest problem. (Some sprays that are used don't seem to faze some of their rodents.) After I moved (fortunately AFTER, otherwise I would have run like hell after finding out), I learned that one of my boyfriend's friends had lived at Veranda very recently. He found a snake in his apartment! He immediately requested to move and mgmt tried to make him pay an exorbitant fee to get out of his lease. Furthermore they took steps to make sure noone found out about the incident. That's the kind of thing you have to watch out for. Lots of trees, lots of bushes, riverside property...snakes will always be a probability.
My worst experience at Veranda was the summer I kept my 16-year-old neice. One of their maintenance men began making passes at her. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt...thinking maybe he was just friendly. But he accosted her outside the fitness center one day to ask if "you work out alone?" He also asked her how old she was. A few days later I made a maintenance request for my apt. And who should they send? Loverboy, of course! (Along with another mtc. man.) She immediately called me on my cell to let me know it was the same "guy" she'd told me about running into outside the fitness center. This time he wanted to know if "you're home alone." Of course, that really gave me the creeps. I started to turn back around and go back to my apartment, but I just told her to leave if she felt unsafe. A couple of days later, I went in the spare bedroom that I'd given her for the summer. I found one of the maintenance man's screwdriver on her dressor. What the hell?!?! I had not requested any work in that room! Ok, so immediately I'm thinking he's been in their sniffing her panties or something creepy - I've heard of maintenance men doing perverted stuff like that. According to her, he hadn't bothered her or anything, but I was terribly bothered by finding a tool in her room. I knew him to be a chatty fella because we had chatted a bit on a previous occasion when he had to come in to fix something. But talking to me as an adult and continuing to try to be "friendly" with a girl HE KNOWS is 16 is two totally different things! I decided I'd better say something to mgmt, but the challenge was finding out how to bring it up without making something out of what might not have been much of anything...ya know, angering the man and causing him to retaliate. Well, I made my point to the mgr. lady. I specifically asked her to please just give a blanket reminder to ALL of the maintenance personnel to remind them that they are there to make repairs and that's it. Of course she made me describe who the mtc. man in question was, but I specifically ask that she not target him. Well what did she do? Probably went straight to him. Now I can't prove that, but alls I know is that everytime he saw me on the property after that, he gave me the ultimate EVIL EYE...as if to say "YOU BITCH!" I guess I don't have to tell you how safe I felt throughout the remainder of my residence there. Hell, a maintenance man can get in at any hour.
That experience along was enough, but add that to the fact that they seemed to be letting 'ghetto' folk move in. I encountered some very rude and belligerent neighbors above me who did not seem to understand that their child could not go stomping thru their unit at all hours. The cops made FREQUENT visits responding to domestic disputes. I learned this from talking to the Cobb County PD after I had to file a report. My spare tire was stolen from below my SUV!
I learned from speaking with my neighbors that they were disgruntled as well. It was just one of those complexes that wanted to charge you like they were upscale yet what you got for the money was on a LOT LOWER scale. Needless to say, I moved and haven't looked back.