Summer Grove Apartments Rant...I Mean Review (Now renamed Park at Palmer)

Oh boy. I have been wanting to write about this one for a while. I couldn't really post our full thoughts and experiences at this apartment complex since most review websites don't let you post more than a certain number of words/characters. Mine is FAR longer and in detail than those platforms will allow. So I am going to write it ALL out here and hopefully spread the news that this is a TERRIBLE location. I also have new information from our constant drives past the apartment and have seen their new 'updates'. Those will be at the end so you can see how ridiculous these changes are.

Sidebar: Park at Palmer, at least what we can see driving past it frequently. has done a lot about the exterior of their properties. Adding stupid lights on the outside, repainting the building, and changing the sign. However, the huge dumpster in the parking lot with the damaged fences all around doesn't help. If you think this is fine and normal, it's not. Not if it's sitting there for over 6 months. Heard that maybe there are storage containers too in that parking lot. But that raises another question: Did they not have enough money to make ends meet that they had to rent out space for storage? Think it helps to know that this street is one of the most dangerous areas in Colorado Springs? Also has a pretty high home burglary chance based on safety websites and police reports. Shootings have been increasing as well since we left in 2018.

Our review is based on our stay of 2017-2018. Our first red flag was the fire trucks putting out a fire in the sister building across the street. Apparently, an arsonist was pissed at someone who was living there and tried to set the building on fire. I wish we took that warning but we were desperate for a place of our own and thought the price would be liveable.

It was not. Pay the extra $400 with a minimum of $1200/mo to get a place you can actually call home. One that you'll WANT to call home. For a few months, we were exhausted, terrified, and disgusted so badly we couldn't stay. We had to be out most of the time or stay at a relative's home. As very anxious and introverted people, we don't do well with this so this had to be quite an extreme for us to need to leave. As Autistic, we react badly to change and having to be around other people.

So let's get into it:

They deserve negative stars.

This place deserves to be demolished and leveled as to start over from SCRATCH.

This has been a long-awaited review since our 4th month out of our 13-month lease.

First off if you are looking for a place for yourself or someone you care about...

THIS IS NOT THE PLACE.

This is the lowest of the low and your desperation for a place should take you elsewhere.

Let me tell you of our hellish stay:

1. This place is infested. We knew that because of being an apartment there were of course higher chances of it happening. We had a few roaches that were gross but we could handle it with some spray. But we only expected roaches. It wasn’t until the 3rd month we moved in that we started getting bedbugs. They argue we brought them, but we never had bedbugs before here! It took us a month to get this infestation under control. The apartment complex wouldn’t really do anything. They stopped by once, sprayed twice in front of our sinks in the kitchen, and left. Two months later we had more bedbugs. On top of that, we started seeing more roaches and also seeing mice running in and out of the walls. If you didn’t have anxiety before here, you’ll definitely get it. Hearing the scritches in the walls and scratching unsure if it’s a stray hair or a bedbug popping up again will get to you. After two months of what seemed like peace from those suckers, they came back. And almost half of my body was covered in bites. Took us 3 bottles of different bug spray, diatomaceous earth, and switching to an air mattress to finally get SOME sleep. Again pest control didn’t do much. They stuck down some 2 sticky traps and 2 black boxes (for mice) and left.

2. The neighbors are disgusting. They leave their trash out everywhere, constantly smoking and drinking right where you are supposed to walk to get to your car. If you are lucky, you’ll have a bunch of them hanging out by their car that happens to be always RIGHT NEXT TO YOUR CAR. From when I leave for class at 8 am to when I need to run to the car to grab something to midnight. If someone is moving out or being evicted, you’ll see piles of junk lying around that could take from a day to two weeks to clean up. They also leave their trash in the hallways, on the stairs, by the entry/exit, etc.

Dog owners don’t know how to take care of their pets either. They’ll let their dogs shit anywhere and everywhere then walk off. We have counted over 10 piles of poop just walking from our car to the door of the building. Also varies how long it will take for it to be cleaned up. We even have owners that won’t clean up after their dogs that even poop in the hallways. We watched a pile of dog poop roll up and down the hallway in front of our apartment for over a week before it was finally cleaned up.

3. They SAY they are doing improvements but will just paint over the problem and claim it to be ‘new' and 'improved’. They were going to ‘repave’ the parking lot around the buildings but ended up only spray painting the grounds. They even towed our vehicle while we were in the hospital and had called to leave a message. They were expecting us to pay the +$1200 cost to get it back.

4. The ladies will lie to get you in. When I asked about the price of utilities (water) she told me, to my face, that one girl only was charged about $15. However, she decided to withhold the key fact that the total usage of water for a building is split amongst how many apartments are using the water. We barely used any water one month (staying at a family’s place for a week) and still had to pay $80!!

5. The front desk is rude and doesn’t seem to want to do their job. You can call and call and they won't pick up. How many times have I called the front desk to have them pick up and then quickly hang up on me?

-I asked nicely if they could fold a paper with our private information on it when putting it on our door and they demanded ‘that’s how they’ve always done things’. (BTW it isn’t, they pick and choose whatever is convenient) I consulted a lawyer and read up on the law: as long as the paper can be seen and easily obtain for the recipient, it can be folded. They fold it for almost every other notice they stick on doors.

6. Front desk is lazy: You need your monthly letter to remind you of what’s coming up the next month? Example: Well expect your August letter warning you payments are going to be later on August 9th when they finally get around to putting it up.

7. Expect your upstairs neighbors to be walking all the time all night and hearing the ceilings creak as if something will break through. We have been here through 3 different tenants in our year stay and EVERY SINGLE ONE decides to be up from midnight to 4 am walking from one end of their apartment for at least a FULL hour. (Not even a 5min break? nope.) You also get the enjoyment of hearing their conversations and bad taste in music through the vent in your bathroom. Way to be a part of a second family you never wanted.

8. The area outside is not peaceful. Do not believe the lies when you happen to stop by. I suppose it was a red flag when we moved in and there was a firetruck in front of Tanglewood because of an arson fire. There has also been an increase in gunshots, yelling, domestic violence, and we even think a car blew up. (Not too far-fetched of an assumption. If you stay here you’ll understand).

9. We may be ok with the smell of weed but even WE agree that some rooms have HUGE clouds of marijuana smoke wafting from their apartments. It’s WAY too much and constant infiltration of other nearby apartments.

10. ALWAYS know what your lease says, they will try to find a way to take advantage of you.

11. We had our mailbox broken for weeks and the front desk did NOTHING. They even allowed all of our private mail to still be put into the mailboxes.

12. They kept putting us on the list for pest control (that does nothing) week after week with a letter threatening us that if we didn’t let the guy in then we would be charged $150 for it. So we would waste almost half of our day to keep telling the dude to STOP showing up. We had gotten it under control for almost 3 weeks before they finally stopped.

13. They say they have maintenance to take care of things, however, the people they hire for this don’t know much about what they are doing either. They would tell us that they were done but pop up a few days later in the middle of the day saying ‘they forgot something’ and intrude in our home for another hour while they worked.

14. Their lease says they can accept personal checks if it’s before when rent is due. I brought it in (sat) and they refused to take it meaning I had to wait until the banks were open to deposit money into a different account. I had been notified that they had received the money...but two days later I got a notification that I was short $18, i was then 4 days late and had to pay almost $200 because they wouldn’t take my check on time and I had to jump through hoops.

15. We never got our Carbon Dioxide detector that we asked for before we even moved in. I believe this was made mandatory by the state of Colorado in 2004. I forget which year exactly but it has been enough years to have this taken care of for all apartment units.

16. BTW one of the ladies even lives in the main building and still doesn’t do anything about the dog crap and trash that litters the ground as she makes her way to the office daily

17. The maintenance crew also seems to have a little too much fun on work carts driving wherever they please. Why all over the wet grass that squishes and ruins the lawn? Why did you have to drive up on a section that was actually maintained to talk to people instead of park and walk the three steps?

As you can see the place is NOT a great place. Bad area, too expensive to rent, costly to upkeep and maintain, dirty/disgusting, unsafe...just nothing positive here. Please for the love of God FIND SOMEWHERE ELSE!

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I have had to wait sometime before coming back to this and getting this ready to post. The manner I wrote this in, still stands. The times we have driven by the location in this past year (about 20+ times), we can stand firm that most of this still has not changed. They tried to make the outside look nicer, but since they didn't tear down the buildings to clean out the infestation, it's still disgusting inside.

They have put up CGI photos instead of actual photographs. Doesn't matter, don't live there. On top of all the problems I mentioned, that area is not the safest or cleanest area either. So there isn't much they can improve on by themselves anyway. Unless the few streets surrounding improve, this place will stay just as disgusting.

I hope you heed our warning and pretend this place just doesn't exist. Good luck.