The Birches

The Birches apartments are terrible. The people who run the complex do not care. To start, they tell people when they move in that the carpets are new, a COMPLETE LIE. When we moved out they said we had to pay for new carpets since they don't redo the carpets. The landlord could not even tell me what year the carpets were replaced. They also claim to have a great maintenance team that will fix anything in the apartment, ANOTHER LIE. When we asked them several times to fix a couple of things,… they would just put it off or say "it will be fine" and never actually fix things. They simply did not care. They also did not care how they screwed you over financially. When trying to move out of the apartment, we asked if there was anything we needed to do beforehand. They said, "No, we do not need a notice." And there it is, ANOTHER LIE. When we contacted them again a month later to make sure, we were then told that we did not tell them with enough time in advance. Therefore, we were forced to pay an extra month, but just wait, the rent went up for the month too! They did not tell us the rent would go up, therefore autopay wouldn't withdraw a payment, meaning that they manage to ask for more money, deny autopay, then charge us for them being sneaky. All of these issues on top of being in a dangerous area, leads to a no go.

STAY AWAY!! Read More

Great area, super quiet, layouts are a little wonky but otherwise really nice apartments. Absolutely love the staff in the leasing officw; always super friendly and helpful.
That said... Maintenance freaking sucks. The A/C-heating unit in my bedroom doesnt blow ANY hot air and the 4 times I've had maintenance here to fix it I get the same response "We'll see how it does overnight and check it tomorrow" then they never show and act like it never happened.

Pros: I loved my stay at Woodleaf (now the Birches). It was conveniently close to everything I needed (daycare, shopping, access to public transport for traveling purposes, since I did not drive). The staff was always friendly, helpful and welcoming, which meant I never dreaded approaching anyone in the office for help whenever I needed an issue resolved. Since I lived on the top floor, I never had to deal with the thumping of footsteps or anything of that nature, so I am not the best person to… speak on noise caused by upstairs neighbors.
THe staff was incredibly accommodating when I needed to move making an otherwise tricky situation (due to health reasons) very manageable. If I had to rent in the area again I would return there without a moment's hesitation.

Cons: I would have loved to have a larger fitness center (though for $100 a year you can get membership to a pretty nifty gym just down the road from the complex) and it would have been great if I could have accessed the fitness room within the complex 24/7. Unfortunately the times just did not work for me, except on weekends.

There is a weird hissing noise that comes from the building adjacent to the apartments. It will catch you off guard at first, but eventually you get used to it and stop noticing. I was originally a little irked that no one had thought to mention this to me before we moved in, especially since all our bedroom windows faced the source of the noise. It was no longer as audible though once the windows were replaced. (Pro: LOTS of renovations had begun just before we left.)
We quickly realized that though the unit was carpeted it did little to shield our downstairs neighbors from the noise our walking made. So if you live in an upstairs apartment you always have to be weary of your neighbours. If you think you are walking softly, try harder.

General: Experiences will vary from person to person, since much of one's impression of the place will be based on the neighbors you have. We were lucky. Our unit (for the most part) had well-mannered people so we almost never had any issues. The teenagers that lived there though would get noisy at times thinking they could get away with it. As long as you are courteous to neighbors and staff things generally run smoothly. In my two year stay all my maintenance issues were resolved within 24hrs, no questions went unanswered, and no (genuine) complaints went unresolved, so I have nothing but good things to say about my experience. Read More

I have lived in the "Birches" for the nearly 3 years and have been plagued by a persistent problem with mice that property management does little to combat. Last summer I reported a mouse in my apartment and both maintenance worker and Property Manager looked at me and told me that they would get to it the next day-- I had a gaping hole near my air conditioning unit where mice were getting into the apartment.

Maintenance is terribly slow and often they come to your apartment and don't even… finish the list of repairs requested. Once I had painters knock my television to the floor and shattered it when I wasn't home. When I requested to have the television replaced, the Property Management denied everything and refused to pay.

The neighborhood is not safe and I often see shady characters hanging out at night throughout the complex and once when I was using the fitness room, a neighborhood homeless person used an access code to enter and proceeded to bathe in the bathroom of the fitness room to my horror.

Nonetheless, I will be moving out as soon as my lease up.... Read More