The Birch

Overall, I really like living here. Great location, nice neighbors, and a dog friendly community!

When I first moved in this place it was worth the rent I was paying. But now that they have raised the rent every year I’ve been here and now it’s time to start looking for another place. Because this place is not worth what I pay. Their is no air conditioning in the lower apartments. The only cold air running is in the hall ways, if it’s not broken, and all the residents keep their doors open just to get cool air in their apartments. That still doesn’t help because there’s no internal air conditioning in the individual apartments. The windows don’t lock properly and are easily open from the outside. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable living here because I never know if someone’s going to come through my window. The heaters are old and outdated. The electricity in the apartment is wired wrong. I plugged in a lamp and my computer in the same socket and all the lights shut off after a loud popping noise went off. I had to reset the breakers. This happens every time something is plugged in that outlet. But the other outlets don’t even hold anything in them because they are not put on right. The location of the apartments is great. I believe that’s why people move here. If they made updates to the apartments than people would probably stay here.

When the Birch first took over, they did not get online services set-​up. So I had to give them a check. About a month later I get a call and they say they don’t have a check from my roommate. I had no idea — my roommate said he paid. He said he’d stop that check and give them a new one. Three days later, I’m convinced he’s lying. My only legal option was to pay his portion of the rent. When I went to the office, they knew the situation and that I was reluctantly paying for him. However, I not only had to pay his portion ($ 450) — I also had to pay about $ 400 in fees. They charged for every late day. I found this extremely unfair for a few reasons. One — if they had the online portal set-​up on time, I would have known there wasn’t a payment sooner. And two — they took over a month to notify me as well. Instead of seeing reason though, they just wanted to take my money. Seriously, it sucks to live with corporate management that’s absurdly heartless. Stick to a human landlord. Seriously, when I handed over that huge check, I felt like these people were laughing in my face at my pain, that’s just how rude they were.
And when they finally did have the online portal set-​up! They were complete idiots when I tried to say «I can’t make two separate payments.» I had to have my roommate give me money before I could send one payment online. They’ve figured it out since then, but it was still a pain. The portal is still terrible. Get a new web developer.

I love my apartment! I’ve been here for about 2 years and my girlfriend lives with me. It’s a little small for both of us but it’s our home and as soon as I walk through the door I feel like I have everything I need. But that’s kind of where my love ends.
First off, there has been a nice layer of ice in my parking lot for months now. When it snows no one ever clears the snow from the parking lot and then days, weeks, months go by and that snow turns into ice that never melts. I’ve complained to the management in the past but they never seem to get around to throwing any salt down. So it’s fun walking out to my car every morning.
Next, every building has a security door which is nice and helps me feel safe but about once every other mouth or so the security door stops locking. It takes about a week for anyone to fix it.
Some other things that just don’t sit well with me are the fact that the light in the laundry room in my building has never worked properly. It looks like a Saw movie in there! Also the washing machine on the 4^th floor has been out of order for so long, I don’t even check to see if it’s fixed anymore. The windows leak whenever it rains really hard. The oven is falling apart. Sometimes we find cockroaches. The hallways always smell weird. There’s no recycle and the dumpster is almost always over flowing. Also I sometimes find rats around the dumpster.
But this place has some of the cheaper rent in the area so I guess you get what you pay for.