The Den Apartments — Attraction in Columbia Township

REVIEW PART 1: PLEASE READ this before considering The Den as a next apartment to stay at for the year:

If I could have given negative stars on this review, I would. Let's just take a walk through the list, from move-in to move-out.

The apartment at move-in: When I moved in to the apartment, I had to spend a legitimate entire DAY cleaning it before I could move in because everything was a disgusting mess. My bedroom had blood/fecal stains on it, the room, closet and bathroom were a mess, and the living room was a disaster - it was covered in dog hair, clearly nothing had been cleaned and we actually had dog toys under our couch, still. Funny thing is, my roommate and I don't own dogs. I moved in probably a week or two after my roommate and I didn't fill out the fact that the living room and kitchen was a mess, for the fact that there had been someone who filled this out on their sheet prior to my moving in. But apparently this doesn't matter as I have received a cleaning bill, though I cleaned the apartment except for what was dirty when I moved in. The Den is refusing to show me my roommate's move-in sheet because the list of dirty ** is "private information and on an individual lease." I think that we have established that the apartment at move-in was a disaster, we can move on to:

Living in the apartment: The apartment, over-all, was pretty cheap from a sense that everything in it (including furniture and appliances) was clearly bought cheaply; living here was not cheap. The dryer took three or four runs to dry one load of clothes, the dishwasher did not clean pre-soak/washed dishes in one run and the entire apartment is electric, which of course, you will pay for later. We were quoted for $30/person for electric per month and this is the good part. I am a pre-medical/graduate engineering student and I am almost NEVER home but my electric bill for my portion of the bill was less than $100 ONE time. On top of this, I lived near neighbors that had parties literally all the time and nothing was ever done. I had music blasting through my ceiling to the point I could CLEARLY HEAR THE WORDS of the music that was playing, but why would the management do anything about this? The "courtesy patrol" officers were either A) never present or B) when they were present, they were sitting in the lounge drinking coffee and sitting on their phones the entire night and I have seen that firsthand. On several occasions, there were parties at the pool that were literally blasting music and filled with people. A little bit of fun is good, but it looked like the entire Six Flags waterpark was jammed into the pool area. It was actually impressive that I could hear all of this going on as I was on the opposite side of the building from the pool.

During the winter: Do not count on the Den to deal with the snow in the parking lot or the ice on the sidewalks and the road. One of the maintenance workers was nice enough to blow snow, some of the times, but DO PLAN on falling a lot and spending at least an hour trying to get out of the parking lot on bad winter days. If the den has to pay someone to do it, do not count on...

This place is not good at all. I think they bribe their residents to leave good reviews for discounts or free items because none of these reviews make sense. Also they don't leave any written reviews, just stars. I would suggest before moving into a place, never look at just the stars, READ THE REVIEWS. Because most of the time, the stars are crap. When I lived a the grove they would say, "Give us 5 stars on facebook or google plus and get a free t-shirt." This is deceitful. I AM A CURRENT RESIDENT AT THE DEN. Sure, the amenities are nice though the apartments and staff (especially at the front desk) are not nice at all. They are rude on the phone, sometimes nonchalant on the phone with information. And they never know important answers to questions. I first moved into my apartment August 15th, It was very dirty... The floors had cat hair everywhere and all over the couches & pillows. I thought they clean the apartment before one moves in. I was wrong. Though soon after filling a maintenance report, that was token care of. I will give them that. There is a empty room in our apartment that one lady was suppose to occupy but due to circumstances never came. That room smelled so badly. You could smell (smells reminded that of cat urine) when you walked into the apartment. The door was locked so I couldn't take care of the problem myself. After waiting a week after filling a maintenance report and calling several times a person finally came to deal with the problem that was nothing more than a BS solution. They put an air filter in the room and told me they would have carpet cleaners come by. A week passed and they came and took the air filter saying someone else needs it. I waited patiently for another week when I was just tired of waiting and called. They then told me they would have the carpet replaced. Not notifying me of these updates or when it was actually going to happen. Living in an apartment with a strong urine smell is embarrassing and disgusting for myself and guest. They don't upkeep the lounge area or computer lab they advertise and don't even think about having a comfortable ride to campus. The bus is always so crowed and I've seen students almost everyday have to sit and stand on the steps 1 inch from the door they are most of the time LEANING on it . THIS IS SO DANGEROUS, if there was an accident they would surely fall right out. I don't see how they can allow this. I will be reporting it to the police or traffic officers because this is against the law. Also when we moved in our water heater burnt out and the worker informed me that he had to replace 25 just that week. This place is brand new but falling apart already... I don't suggest living at the den. The first week they were pressuring people to resign with them so they can trap you into another year before you figure out they are a...

Nice amenities at an affordable price, assuming you wait until the mid Spring semester when they start offering crazy deals for you to sign. However, all of this is blundered by the management's complete lack of desire to follow up on resident complaints.

I lived here for two years, with an apartment facing the pool, and let me tell you what a terrible experience that was. Over the summer months, I would be completely unable to fall asleep almost every night because the residents are able to access the pool whenever, despite the staff saying it closes at 11. The complex is completely built around this pool, which is just completely idiotic. There's a reason most of the other off-campus communities have their pool/fire pit areas far away from the apartments. It's because they know they are housing college kids that might want to party at 4 am in the pool and be obnoxiously loud. The Den's design creates a practical echo chamber for these people, waking up nearly half the residents any time some idiot decides they want to go for a late night swim. I emailed management directly several times, asking if they would please lock the pool or at least have the security presence increased. They told me both would happen, but it never did.

My final problem is that upon leaving the Den in May, I was charged 75 dollars for a bedroom/bathroom cleaning. You might be asking, "How in the world does an bedroom with a square footage comparable to that of a modern SUV rack up 75 dollars in cleaning fees?" I asked that too, seeing that I had completely cleaned the place before I left. Well, I may as well have just hosted the biggest rager of all time in that room before I left and not cleaned up anything, because I came to find out the only reason I was charged was because they needed to clean some soap scum in my bathtub. And the management still tried to argue this was justified. For reference of how insane this is, I now pay 80 dollars to clean my entire house on East Campus.

Like I said, there are some nice things about the Den, and it was the best option for me financially for two years. But They completely screwed me and several others over on different occasions. Just save yourself the headache and live somewhere else. There's too many other similar options in Columbia for you to justify the problems you'll encounter here.

Also, be careful with some of the positive reviews on here. While some do have truth to them, and I'm sure many people have had positive experiences, the wide majority were probably written in order to join a gift card raffle that the Den hosts several times a year. They might be saying nice things because they want...