Brookside West

I want to start off by saying this review will be as fair, honest and unbiased as possible. Just on the slight chance that someone out here on the Internet is as neurotic as I am and scours the Internet for reliable reviews. I indeed searched high and low for reviews of Brookside West, to very little avail. Most appeared over exaggerated, angry or much too old to accurately give an assessment. Let me start by saying everything g with our selection, communication and leasing process for Brookside West was sight unseen. We were 800 miles away and being transferred to the Augusta area. We needed temporary (1 yr) housing that was clean, in a SAFE neighborhood, and was affordable. My long list of 3 bedrooms finally narrowed down and Brookside West was on it. I communicated with the leasing agent, Tai, by phone and email. She was an absolute pleasure (I’m not sure she is working there anymore, however). We submitted the application and app fee through their Web portal online and withing 48 hours we were notified of approval. We sent out money order overnight priority in a money order and awaited of move in date (¹¹⁄₂₀₁₄). On Move in day we arrived as soon as they opened and signed our lease with Billye. Now we must take a minute to discuss Ms Billye. The overwhelming majority of reviews seem to cast quite a gloomy and discouraging picture of her. And quite honestly, I was expecting a disagreement from here. She was professional, although a bit rough with her presentation (she’s from Northern Michigan, maybe that explains the cold attitude). Now she was dry and harsh every time I ever called the office with questions, to put in maintenance requests etc. The entire year of our stay, we only specifically had 2 incidents with Billye being rude. One time, she called my husband one day on the phone and attempted to talk to him as a child, to which she was reminded of her professional relation and was fine from there. There was another time he called to put in a maintenance request, there was water coming through our townhome from the one next door and she vehemently insisted that it was coming from our washroom. We knew this wasn’t true as the washroom is on a whole other wall. Needless to say, maintenance discovered the bottom floor of our former neighbors townhome completely flooded as they forgot to turn off the water when they unplugged their washer.
Now, let’s get into maintenance, the townhomes and such…
Maintenance did the best they could I suppose. I never really had an issue with attitudes, they all were prompt when I called with issues. These townhomes ARE older. I believe they were built in the 50s/​60s. They are tri level homes 2 bedrooms and bathroom on 3^rd floor (top), living, kitchen dining area on main (middle floor), and wash closet, bathroom with shower and room on lover level. This level also lets out to a small fenced in patio area with a little patch of grass that they will cut upon request. Our refrigerator was brand new, stove was not and went out once (oven caught fire and burned out slowly), but maintenance fixed the same day. The dishwasher worked when it wanted to, sometimes water came out, sometimes not, but it wasn’t too much of a problem. The bathrooms are probably in the biggest need of updating. They look straight out of the last renovations (probably 80s), it did appear to have hair from the previous tenant painted into the wall in various spots. The paint job inside the homes was just livable. They have painted over so many times it’s just thick paint. The air conditioning unit is old and condensation drips down to the hose where the washer hoses hook up. They never changed the filter while we were there. Because this is an older, non energy efficient place. the electric bills are high. 300 dollars in summer with black put curtains and oscillating fans. In the winter we had to stay away from windows and doors because of the constant cold air. Poorly insulated. Overall though, never had a roach problem, saw some spiders in spring and maybe 4 Waterbugs in a year’s time and always after a storm (it’s the south, not a big deal). The rooms are all a great size, our oversized furniture fit wonderfully.
Now let’s talk about the grounds and safety. I personally felt safe living here. It’s in a great neighborhood in Augusta, right behind the Aigusta National Golf Club. Little word of advice here, plan to take your spring vacation during the week of the Master’s. We mistakenly took ours the week AFTER and boy oh boy the traffic was insane! A 20 minute drive home from work at Fort Gordon for hubster took 3 hours due to traffic and road closures. Now I must say we lived in the very fron of the complex on a small row of 4 townhomes by the pool. So I can only speak for the front area. It was always quiet, there were times hubs left car unlocked and even left keys in front door of the house overnight. And we made it! No robbery, no death!