My wife and I may be spoiled by living in our own home for many years before moving to an apartment, and we find...
My wife and I may be spoiled by living in our own home for many years before moving to an apartment, and we find the grounds and the lake area beautiful and pretty well maintained. We've had issues that have been addressed, and others that haven't. We live in the newest section of apartments and have had way more maintenance issues than we should have -- from sprinklers falling out of the ceiling, to the patio ceiling falling apart, to blinds falling out of the windows and hitting my wife -- to consider it a well constructed facility. Management was good about following up on a complaint I made about a neighbor always parking in the handicapped spot without a permit, so I'll give them credit for that. But now that the weather's nice and we're wanting to use the pool, we find that there are a multitude of non-residents using the facility. It's a beautiful up-to-date pool, but they don't bother to check or maintain the gates to limit access (one is broken and they put a bicycle lock on it -- really! -- to try to limit access but it's easy to open the gate enough to get through, and I'm not sure why they can't fix it properly?). They hand out wrist bands for residents and their guests, but nobody every bothers to check for wristbands or escort the no-wristband visitors out. What good is it to have a beautiful pool area if you're not going to keep it clean and safe for the residents? Nice furniture with evidence of cigarettes being stubbed out on it? I don't think they need someone to be there full-time, but they do need to have someone check and enforce the rules, or else just swing the gates open and let everyone in -- put a sign by the entrance maybe -- and turn it into a truly public pool. I simply don't get why, when they have such a beautiful property to entice renters, that they don't preserve it for the people who actually reside there. The non-residents who use the pool leave trash laying around, have been rowdy and disrespectful to residents, and just simply ruin the ability for residents to relax and enjoy a pool that they are paying for. A lot of people love a beautiful pool in the summer, but the residents are paying for it and should be entitled to its use without all the hassles that keeping it open to everyone involves. All they have to do is enforce the rules on the weekends, as that's when people want to use it. Sounds simple, but apparently it's not.