Review for West Town Apartments

All the problems associated with living at the West Town Apartments stem from the inept management and the overworked (and generally unskilled) maintainance staff.

Let me start with the positives. The apartments are quite well laid out (except for the tiny bathroom in my two bedroom apt.): three is little wasted space, and I especially like the spacious kitchen (with good appliances) and huge storage area. The grounds are landscaped better than most El Paso apartments, and the tenants are relatively quiet, except for those with barking dogs.

Now for the bad stuff. The two women who the run the place seem better suited to "playing house" than actually managing an apartment complex. They frequently arrive late to work and shut up the office early. You cannot get ANYTHING repaired--not matter how urgent--without repeatedly (at least 4 or 5 times) insisting that they take action. When the maintainance guys do finally get around to you, their work is shoddily done with cheap materials. Complaints about noise, safety, parking violations, etc. are completely ignored. As a result, people excersice no controll over their dogs; cars are parked where they are not supposed to be (which could create a real problem if a fire truck had to get through); and porches are commonly used for junk storage. The grounds are not particularly well kept, and the sprinklers go off at all hours of the night and day, usually watering the sidewalk and gravel more than the grass. Plumbing problems are frequent, meaning that water is shut off for the entire complex every couple of months for several hours.

One final thing to consider: the gas and water are billed on an allocated system, which bascially means that you will probably pay $20-$30 more per month than if you paid only for your own usage.

In the final analysis, the apartment scene in El Paso is, in general, pretty dismal; and there are worse places to live than West Town. If none of the negatives I've mentioned above bother you, then you might like it there. As for me, when my lease came up last month, the decision to find another place was a no-brainer.