Avesta Costa Del Lago

Been here since May 2012, finally leaving this August. Everything about these apartments is less than ideal.
This is a bad part of town. Not the complex’s fault, but prospective residents should be aware. The Walmart down the street is a magnet for riff-​raff, car break-​ins, and police activity, while shady characters are a constant presence along 10^th Avenue in front of the complex.
Most of the complex was built in the 1970s. That’s also the last time meaningful repairs were made. Maintenance problems abound. Since I’ve been here, my A/​C unit dumped gallons of water on my carpet, my upstairs neighbor’s A/​C dumped gallons of water that also found its way to my carpet, my toilet stopped working completely, drains stay clogged despite gallons of Drano, more A/​C issues, and the other morning I went to open my refrigerator and the handle broke off.
Things break in any apartment; the problem here is the office staff’s response ranges from lackluster to indifferent. My A/​C leaked for six months before they replaced the unit. Instead, they would send some joker out to put a band-​aid on the problem, which worked for a day or two, then it started leaking again. When I complained, the office’s response was, «We’ll send him back out.» This went on for months, all the while I had to wear shoes in my own apartment because the carpets were saturated in cold water.
I had a cockroach infestation despite living a very sanitary lifestyle. The office staff drug their heels on this problem, too, leaving me with thousands of unwanted roommates (who didn’t chip in on the rent) for months. They’d send a guy out to do a cursory spray. It became apparent after a few sprays that the problem needed a more robust solution, but it took six months of complaining for the office to provide one. Finally they sent another guy who examined the walls in the kitchen and determined where the bugs were getting in. He nuked the tiny crevice with poison and then sealed it off, solving the problem. But this was after me complaining regularly for the better part of a year!
Individual apartments aren’t fitted with W/​D connections, and the community laundry rooms are disgusting. Trash everywhere, constant urine smell, shady characters loitering, and at any given time at least half the machines are broken. I complained, but the staff abdicated responsibility, claiming the company who services the machines is the problem. When I asked why they don’t fire the company, they responded that it’s impossible because they signed a TWENTY-​FIVE YEAR CONTRACT! Who does that? The machine where you load your laundry card once ate my $ 20 bill without giving me credit.
Let’s talk about neighbors. You better like yours if you live here, because you’ll be hearing everything they say and do. Walls thin as paper mache separate the apartments. The duration of your next-​door neighbor’s morning whiz, and what he yells when he climaxes (mine: «Take it all, girl, take it all!») will be common knowledge within a week of moving in.
My immediate neighbors really weren’t bad for my first two-​and-​a-​half years here. But my luck ran out a few months ago. A family that I’m pretty sure is Satan’s spawn moved in one apartment to the left above me. That’s how bad they are – I don’t even share walls with them directly, yet they’re still capable of making my life miserable.
Remember the movie «Problem Child,» with that rotten redheaded kid? And then the sequel, when he teams up with the little blond girl who’s even worse? Picture a family with six kids like that, a loud, ghetto dad who weighs 300lbs, and a negligent mom who spends most of her waking hours loitering in her Impala in the parking lot, smoking cigarettes and avoiding her kids (I can’t blame her for the last part). Imagine they’re LOUD, too. As in they want to ensure that the city of Lake Worth hears everything they do.
It sounds as if they installed a bowling alley inside their apartment, and next to it a track where their kids run wind sprints with concrete blocks strapped to their feet. From what I can hear, they also enjoy such fun family activities as seeing who can throw pots and pans against the wall the hardest, lifting living room furniture overhead and letting it fall to the ground, and competing for the highest-​pitch and loudest sustained squeal.
The staff has done nothing to alleviate this problem despite dozens of complaints and myriad documentation. Each time I bring it up, the assistant manager is rude, cuts me off constantly, and refuses to give me specifics on what she’s doing to fix the issue.
Needless to say, I made a huge mistake moving here, and an even bigger mistake renewing my lease twice. I did it out of laziness (I hate moving – who doesn’t?) and because these apartments are cheap. At least they used to be – the rent has increased a TON, and if you look on Craigslist or
, it won’t take you long at all to find MANY options nearby that are much better and much cheaper.