Review for Bass Lake Hills Townhomes Apartments

This review is for the "Rivergate" townhome (1220 sq. ft. plus a 200+ sq. ft 1-car garage, 2 bedrooms, 1.5 baths) at Bass Lake Hills which was $1135/month when I paid for it in 2004 and they are currently claiming $1140/month at apartments.com.

It's fairly nice while you live there. CSM (the owner) sends surveys every few months asking if you're happy, maintenance requests are generally taken care of in a day or two, they do plow the common areas/driveways within a day after a snowstorm, and the common areas are fairly nice (including a pool area and tennis court). There's also a nice park (Camelot Lake Park, city of Plymouth) with a paved walkway around a big lake with wetlands/forest surrounding it within a 1/2 mile walk of the complex. One nice amenity is they give you free access to the copier/fax machine at the office while you live there. The apartment itself is reasonably nice. The two bedrooms upstairs have a high vaulted roof and the upstairs bathroom (main bath) has a huge (very wide) counter with two sinks. Despite it being only 1220 sq. ft. + the garage, you can really abuse storage here. My wife and I moved here from a house and had too much stuff and feared we would have to rent additional storage. Instead, I was able to use: an upstairs "extra closet" with four shelves, a couple of extra spaces in the bathroom, and the entire rafters above the one-car garage to "stuff it" (you'll need a tall ladder for some of these areas but it's worth it). However, we still had an overstuffed barely-able-to-move-around-in living room (because of our furniture) and some conflicts with space in the upstairs bedrooms as well. The kitchen is pretty small but functional (refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, above-stove microwave, sink, counter, and lots of cabinets all in a small space). Also, one minor negative is that there are phone jacks in the kitchen and main bedroom only; if you want additional jacks, they will have to be installed at your expense. Another minor negative is that the soundproofing in the walls is a little weak; I could hear music from the next-door neighbors. Finally, there are no gutters, which while it makes the place looks nice, you will curse it whenever it rains.

My recommendation is that this apartment is reasonable for just one person renting it but not as reasonable for two or more people. The problem is that the apartments at this complex large enough for two people plus stuff ("Crestview" and "Hearthstone") are very expensive ($1475/month and $1390/month, respectively, according to apartments.com).

The negatives I had were when I left this apartment, as follows:

They only offered a 12-month lease (we really would have preferred 6-months), and while they did give us a "build/buy" clause (to exit when you buy a house), they do not allow you to leave to buy a home between end of November and end of February and they require two months notice, and after that, you lose one months rent, plus any "promotional" rent (which was another month in my case).

Also, I still lost the promotional rent because I left early (although not using the build-buy clause, instead they found me a replacement renter). If they offer you a month's free rent for a 13-month lease, as they did to me, BEWARE: You WILL have to pay it back unless you actually pay the whole 12 other months! This was not as clear to me as it could have been.

Finally, they demand that you continue to pay the electricity and gas bill even after you've physically vacated the apartment until your lease is over! (In my case, it was until they found that other renter.)

(I should note in general that the lease clauses are very restrictive, for example demanding that only cars and bicycles be in the garage. Fortunately, these clauses are not enforced and this particular clause on the garage seems to be there only so you won't sue them if your stuff is damaged when snow/slush enters the garage.)

In general, this is a reasonable place to live, especially if you're one person, but watch out with the "promotional rent" and the lease length!