Woodbury Gardens Apartments & Townhomes — Attraction in Ann Arbor

This will be a long and fair review. I lived there for four years. I've seen a few responses from the management claiming people who left poor reviews never lived there, everything they complained about was resolved in 24 hrs (never my experience), etc. I have documented emails and my lease agreement to prove otherwise. I can also vouch that they hold raffles for people who leave good reviews for discounted rent; it's weird that Jack (see below) knew this but supposedly never lived there. A little background on me: I'm from a family raised to be self-sufficient and appreciative of those who help you, only stating this to inform whoever reads this that I always tried to resolve any minor issue I had myself or contact the facilities efficiently and politely.

I initially loved Woodbury, the dog park and the shuttle are extremely helpful with my busy schedule (special shout-out to Larry, the driver, he kept me at this place longer than I should've stayed not only due to his fantastic service but being one of the kindest and generous human beings I've ever had the fortune to know).

My experiences throughout my stay at Woodbury have completely soured my opinion of them. The admin staff is one of the most poorly organized, uncommunicative, and standoffish I've ever encountered. We had several people switch out as roommates during my time, and therefore, different people were paying the rent. Almost every time we paid the rent, we would receive a notice that Woodbury would be charging a late fee or that they would prosecute/evict us. We paid the rent on time, but they would misplace the checks somehow. We also had a roommate move from their apartments to a townhouse, but they would try and use the money she paid for the old apartment. This would happen not once, not twice, but four times.

In addition to this, we had A/C issues, power failures, broken doors, broken appliances, wasps, flooding, heating issues (both the water heater and gas heating), clogging problems, and plumbing issues. Many minor issues were resolved within a few days, but the more significant matters would last for weeks. We had a broken glass door, and they never swept up any of the glass that fell onto the public sidewalk even though it was due to their lawnmowers. I submitted online maintenance requests, emailed the staff, called the staff, and even went in person multiple times. We once had our A/C on 24/7 for months even though the thermostat was off and cost over 1k. I told the staff they had maintenance come out three times, and I was told that it's the summer and that the cost goes up and that I was probably not remembering how often I use it. At almost all times, we were grad students in the house who were in our labs for 75% of the day and would turn off the power to save money, so how does any of that make sense. Eventually, DTE came out after I kept bothering them, and they informed Woodbury that my A/C had probably been broken for months, as I initially thought. I'll stop here as this is already a very long review. I will occasionally come back and check if anyone leaves replies and wants more details.

I was hesitant to leave a review, but I cannot in good conscience recommend this place to anyone until they do a complete sweep or fix their staff.

P.S. Just noticed some of the good reviews are from...

We lived here for a long time, and felt that the complex in general got worse over the years.

Pros: Shuttle driver Larry is super nice, and the shuttle is a good way to get to campus Maintenance people are nice and take care of issues quickly. Every time they came to our apartment, they were nice and helpful. Good location, the area is very walkable (there used to be a grocery store within walking distance, but it closed down in 2020.) There are parks in the area which are very nice and big!

Cons: With large maintenance issues that can't be dealt with by the local staff, they are handled very slowly and sometime poorly. We had a wasp infestation in the walls of our building for months (couldn't use one of the building doors for that entire time since the nest had an entrance there). When the water heater was dying (and then fully died), it took many weeks to be replaced. Mold in the main entrance hall to the building under the wallpaper was treated by painting over it. Insect (non-wasp) infestations were "sprayed for" but that did nothing, and they were essentially ignored. The buildings are aging (resulting in cracks in the walls, near windows, and ceilings), and do not have good soundproofing. Management is uncaring of responding to issues (I asked about fixing the wasp issue many times, and had my requests cancelled in their system), hard to get in contact with, and has some sketch practices (some of the 5 star reviews on here are from their staff, as another reviewer on here accurately noted...). One time (March 2017), they claimed we hadn't paid rent and I had to produce bank statements proving that I had (on time!), and they had already received the money and so I would NOT pay it again.

Edit: Also, Jack in his review said that Woodbury management incentivizes good reviews (which the complex responded to him saying 'you never lived here') - he is 100% right, they do periodically ask everyone to write good reviews and incentivize it with prizes, and I doubt he would know that if he hadn't...

This is an honest, well-deserved review and we were not asked by anyone to write this. *

We searched and contacted countless apartments in Ann Arbor before our move there (first time living in AA and MI as we are not from there). We ended up renting with WGA for a year (lived at the 1960 building, which is by South Industrial Highway) and we cannot recommend Woodbury Gardens enough. From the very beginning, they were on top of things.

We rented a more outdated, pet friendly unit (all the appliance were old but they were in excellent working condition) and we were happy with it. If you prefer to pay more, they also offer renovated units. The unit was spacious and had lots of natural light. Maintenance requests (e.g., closet doors popping out, bathtub glazing, etc.) were always answered promptly. Management and staff are very responsive and overall, pretty solid human beings!

The neighbourhood complex is very well maintained (seriously, I’ve never seen more perfect grass). They also just redid the parking lots last month. There is a dog park (very clean), tennis courts, a basketball court, playground and the Club House has lounge areas, office spaces, kitchens, a gym, an outdoor pool, BBQ spaces, free wifi, coffee/tea/snacks etc. for UM football games, they have tailgating events that serve free grub! The street parking usually gets jam-packed by folks going to the football games, but is otherwise very open and accessible (there’s plenty of parking behind your specific building anyway).

Besides all this, we loved that groceries stores, liquor stores, CVS, gas stations, highway, Target, Whole Foods, etc were all nearby. Drives to downtown often took 6-10 minutes depending on traffic. We never had issues with excess noise (or any noise at all to be honest).

We will surely miss living in such a beautiful, green space. Thank you WGA for making our first stay in AA / Michigan...