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| - I lived in Solara for three years. It definitely has some good points, but they have a number of areas where they could use improvement. The apartments are pretty good, but the complex was built in 1948 and shows its age in many of the details. Maintenance was good, grounds were well kept, and there were no major issues during my time there. That said, management was rather poor.
Apartment: Physically, the apartment was pretty good. My apartment was pretty much what you would expect-clean and comfortable. I had occasional problems with ants, which is pretty common for this part of the country. However the building was generally pretty quiet and well kept. Only one thing stands out with regards to the physical building: there was a soft spot on the ceiling when I moved in, which twice started leaking while I was there. Both times they came out and fixed something, but did not actually fix the ceiling, just whatever was leaking behind it.
Utilities: They charge a flat rate for utilities which increased regularly during my time there. In fact, I was paying basically summer rates year round when I moved out. The building had some problem with water, so my apartment would lose water pressure about once a month, for a couple of hours. It was a minor inconvenience. The buildings have central AC, which is okay but not great. If you're a fan of very cold temperatures, the air simply is not that cold coming out. Since it is central AC, there's not much you can do to get the air colder. AC is also off in the winter, so there may be some unreasonably warm days in the spring or fall. They do have recycling, but they placed the bins in the far corner of the complex, making it a bit of work to hike everything over. Still, in a town with limited recycling, this is a plus.
Grounds: The grounds are pretty well kept. They do regularly go through and pick up litter, and the pools are usually well maintained. They had weekly lawn and garden service which was great (although it came on Monday mornings, and started around 7am, so it was hard to sleep in). The complex is surrounded by a fence with gates, but the gates were out of service about 80% of the time. However, when they were in service, they did not open for bicycles or pedestrians. When I left, there was only one functioning pedestrian gate on the east side of the complex, so if you wanted in or out, you might need to walk more than a block out of your way. Several complaints about this were ignored (or more likely, lost).
Security: This is definitely a plus. My neighbors were great, they had on-site security at night, and I never worried about safety. The only security incident I had was a bike wheel stolen.
Management: This is the biggest issue with the complex. The front office had a high turn-over rate, their accounting was dodgy, and they made many mistakes (not always owning up to them). Notices of late rent occurred occasionally, despite my rent being always on time. Mysterious charges would appear, which the front office would insist were correct but could not explain. Sometimes they were refunded the following month, sometimes not. My recommendation to anyone moving in here, have a few hundred dollars set aside and expect to lose it to bookkeeping errors and mysterious problems. It is just the cost of doing business with a company which can't keep its books straight, and can't retain employees long enough to know what's going on.
Rent: I was pretty comfortable with my rent. The pricing was competitive when I moved in, and only went up once. I got the sense that for new tenants, they were asking more in rent and presenting themselves as high-end luxury apartments (which they are not), but speaking for myself, the rent was good. The utilities were added on to the rent as a flat rate, but the flat rate was going up pretty rapidly (sometimes more than once per year). The utility rate was higher than I would have expected to pay in the summer, much less in the winter.
General thoughts: I liked my time at Solara. I lived there three years. On the whole, it was a pretty good experience and a better choice than most rentals in the area. The biggest downside is the questionable management. The rental itself was nice and reasonable.
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