Apartment Review for Aspen Townhomes - Colorado Springs, CO

We rented a 3/1.5 townhouse here for over 2 years. These apartments are good sized, especially considering the rent, and in hindsight, that should've been a clue. The insulation was pretty crappy - no matter what we did, in the winter we would constantly have drafts coming under the door and through the windows. They charge you for water and gas, but since each unit doesn't have a meter, the management splits up the utility bill among the apartments based on number of occupants and apartment size, so even if you're thrifty with your heat and water, you'll still be paying extra for someone in another apartment who doesn't care. It was not unusual in winter to be billed over $200 a month. Also, and I'm not sure if it was because of the shared plumbing or the thin walls, we constantly had second-hand smoke in our apartment from our neighbors who smoked. Parking was a nightmare - even though there is one assigned spot per apartment, management was often lax about enforcing it. Extra spots are scarce, so there's a lot of competition for them. On top of that, cars were frequently vandalized and/or broken into on property. The neighborhood is not too safe either. It's not unusual to hear gunshots and fights at night, and on the weekend nights, it seems like the police search helicopter is always overhead. That, combined with the police cars driving by slowly shining their spotlights into the shadows often made us feel like we were about to be featured on "Cops". Maintenance was good about fixing things, when they got around to it. I think this was more of an issue of being overworked and understaffed than anything else. A number of times my wife was told by the manager that we should try to fix something ourselves or to make do. After-hours maintenance was nonexistent. We rented there because they were big apartments, and seemed to be low cost. After two years of living with the hidden fees, crime-ridden neighborhood, poor management, and cigarette smoke, we decided it was worth it to move, even if it meant paying more for a smaller place.