Review for Village At Stratford Apartments

I first moved into Village At Stratford apartments in September 2006 into a 1 bedroom apartment. In May of 2007, I upgraded to a three bedroom. When I first got here, the apartments weren t all that bad. They were very nice, actually. Not the greatest in the world, but decent. Over time, that has all deteriorated.
The management is inconsistent and frequently changes. Starting with the last management staff that was here, this place slowly turned into the ghetto complex that it has become, full of inconsiderate neighbors blasting their music and arguing outside and many drug houses within the complex.
Let s start with one thing at a time. Last winter my heater stopped working as well as it did. I couldn t heat the living room, but I was able to heat the back rooms. I kept calling for them to replace it, but they kept insisting nothing was wrong with the unit. I m not stupid, if there s absolutely no air coming out of the vents in the front room, then something is wrong. These units are set up terribly. Take a look at one and you ll see what I mean. And now I m having the same problems with my air conditioning, and I can t say I m impressed with their new maintenance staff. They came here while I was home and left. I had to call the office a few days later to find out if anything was happening, and they told me the maintenance people said everything was okay. Well everything certainly wasn t okay if I still can t cool off my living room. I told them this, and they said they would come back to look at it. So far, nobody has been here to look at or fix anything, and my electric bill continues to skyrocket as a result of not being able to get air in my living room.
The maintenance staff also continues to change with a revolving door of shady people working on your apartment. One worker Mike actually accused me of backing into his car one day while they were working on my apartment. I did nothing of the sort, and there was absolutely nothing on my bumper to say otherwise.
This place is full of shady residents too. They re completely inconsiderate. I can t tell you how many times I ve been woken up in the middle of the night to some jerk s subwoofer in his car blasting and rattling my walls. The security here is a joke as well. I called on them several times in one week on the neighbors in the next building over who for some reason kept hanging out in the parking lot at random hours in the night making a lot of noise. They would never show up. One time they actually did show up . After 15 minutes, when everyone has left. This place is supposed to be noise free, but it is never enforced.
A few months ago, before this management staff took over, my rent check was lost. I had put it through the overnight slot, and somebody stole a bunch of rent checks. They told me that they were going to have a new overnight box put in so it wouldn t happen again. They still have the same overnight box.

In July 2009, somebody sprayed the gang sign BK on the back of my patio. (BK means Blood Killa ). This freaked me and my girlfriend out and we called the cops immediately. A cop came out, and he told us, well what do you expect when you live in the hood' Yeah, that s right, the cops call THIS area the hood! He proceeded to tell me about a guy that was caught in connection with 5 burglaries within the complex, and that the final straw was when he punched a guy out with cancer. He then showed me on his computer that the cops come there at least 6 times a day my call was the 6th for that day! He said the gang violence in the area is rising, and the spray paint on the back of my patio is an indication of that. I called the apartment complex first thing Monday morning and told them about it. When I got home that day, it will wasn t removed. I went in and told them that if they didn t do it, I would do it myself. I didn t want somebody driving by and thinking that I was part of a gang! After that, it was removed the following Tuesday afternoon.

Just before I left, I had a problem with my dishwasher. It wasn t working right, and I still had dishes in there that needed to be washed. I called about this first thing on a Monday morning. I called Thursday about it again, still nothing was done. By Friday, nothing was done about it, and maggots were crawling all over my dishes. I walked into the office to ask about it. The lady there was rude to me saying that the work order would get done when it gets done. I told her that I m supposed to be out of my apartment by Monday, and if I can t get my dishes out of there by the time I have to leave, then that s a problem. She went away for a minute, and came back very annoyed and told me someone would be over there to fix it. He showed up and fixed the dishwasher in about 15 minutes. Aparently they have work orders severely backed up at this place. That should tell you one of two things. Either 1) They need to hire more maintenance people. Or 2) This place is totally uninhabitable and needs to be torn down!
When the new management staff took over, they lowered the rent prices for new people coming in, but not for current residents. I just got my renewal notice, and they once again raised my rent. When calling to ask how much their apartments are, they tell you a lower price than their renewal price. My rent was raised $10 to $794 plus $30 for water. When you call and ask how much this apartment is, they tell you it s $699 and that it s normally $865.
Oh yeah, another random note, their leases are 9 or 12 months! No 6 month lease option! After one month, you ll feel like you re in hell forever!
This place turned out to be an absolute nightmare for me. I wouldn t count on getting your deposits back either. Don t live here! Avoid this place like the plague!!! I can't tell you how happy and relieved I am to finally be out of there. Anyplace is better than that place!