My husband and I lived here for 2.5 years. I do not want to get into the specifics, but the apartment buildings themselves are ancient and have not had improvements to the things that matter. Considering that it is Northern New York and the temperature drops to freezing or below more than 5 months of the year and there can be snowfall of up to 4 feet in 48 hours, things like insulation and decent windows and doors matter.
While it is summer the apartments appear nice with green fields for pets to play and new patio doors. There is no central air so the apartments get really hot in the summer (when temps go to the mid 80s to mid 90s). You can put window units in some buildings but the 2 bedroom apartments do not allow you to place the unit anywhere other than the kitchen, so it does not cool the rest of the first floor at all.
In the winter you can feel the wind blowing through the cracks around the wood framed windows. My Dad is a real estate appraiser and said that the windows are at least 20+ years old; in our apartment there were chunks of the wood frame missing b/c of rot and wasps would get through into the house in the summer. The downstairs bathroom shares a wall with the outside and somehow you can feel gusts of wind through the sink cabinets. It is impossible to keep the apartment warm for a decent amount of time b/c of the drafts everywhere and the power/gas bills get crazy-high. There are no screens on most windows and if there are they are shredded. This isn't a big deal except for the summer when (since the apartments are in a huge field) wasps, yellow jackets and bumblebees want to hang out inside your apartment. We awoke to yellow jackets buzzing around our bedroom throughout the summers and our neighbor couldn't allow her little girl to open her window b/c she had no screens and was allergic to stings. Management always stated that they couldn't replace the screens- no reason, just couldn't.
We had issues with one of the office women trying to up our rent for 3 months in a row due to the fact that the apartments pay for basic cable services; she kept saying that the price was not being charged through our rent but we provided documentation that it was. She did this every month for 3 months to me, my husband, and then me again.
Our cable and Internet were another issue (not that the services were the apartments responsibility, but upkeep of wiring was). The wires are underneath the structure of the apartments and run along the back outside walls. We had to have them replaced twice b/c animals or severe weather had damaged them. Because of the damage I had a lot of problems with my online classes for a semester, b/c the Internet would cut in and out.
For the past 3 years the apartment's office has been telling potential tenants that they will have central air and new windows placed in the apartments the following summer- they have been saying this for 3 years now, and it has never happened. When we moved out the maintenance manager (who is a very nice man, the whole maintenance team is great) stated that they received a grant and ARE getting the place revamped, so maybe by next year they will have decent upgrades.
The apartments got new management in January. Perhaps they will get the place in shape. I hope so considering it is one of the only pet-friendly communities in an area that doesn't have enough apartments for the military families at Drum. read more