Reserve at Gulf Hills Apartment Homes — Local services in Ocean Springs

Firstly, If you are looking for a quiet place to stay, do not move into the 1st or 2nd level because sound proofing is bad. I used to stay on 2nd floor in one of the blocks and had to endure foot steps and noises from up stair. There is no point in calling their courtesy officer as all they provided are standard responses with no improvement at all. I tolerated that for a good duration of time with this understanding that it was not my neighbors' fault and was due to poor sound proofing. FYI, I slept every night with my ear plugs on.

Most disappointing part is my last rent payment to the apartment, which prompted me to write my review here. I left the apartment as my work contract ended and had to return to my home country. Prior to that, I had made several attempts to clear my final bill. I had clearly informed the office that I flew on 3rd March and nobody will be staying in the apartment from 3 March to 17 March when lease ends. I requested for final bill on 28 Feb but was told to come on 1 March when I finally made my payment in the office. I had also informed the office that I would be closing my bank account and informed the lady to write and inform me of any other charges (water bill at end of lease) via email so that payment will be made immediately.

After confirming that payment was made and deducted from my debit account on 2 March, I closed my bank account before I flew back home on 3 March. Unknowingly, there was a small late charge (about USD30) from other service provider to my account and was not reflected on my statement when I closed my account in the bank. Because of that, the transaction for the rent was not successful (I think priority went to the smaller bills & the banking system is really different from my home country). I am frustrated that late fees and even attorney fee with eviction notice continued to be charged to me within a week after I left the country and the office had stubbornly served notices and letters to the apartment doorstep when they know that there was not a single soul in there. I was only informed about it when my colleague finally forwarded the email from their office to me on 10 March. I contacted the office with the help of my US friend today, explained to them about my situation and requested for waiver of all late charges. Without any compassion, the office refused to make this an exception. This is despite of me staying in their apartment for almost 3 years and my unique situation. I take this as a lesson learned and had just made my final payment. All these would not have turned into such a mess with me paying an extra amount of about USD180 for not staying in an apartment for a good period of time (3 to 17 March) if I was notified by email in the beginning. BTW, another story for the contract. I informed the office that I wanted to end the lease earlier but due to inaction by someone in the office in preparing the document until I went to see her personally, lease ended on a much later date one month later from day when I finally signed the end of lease document. Another lesson learned.

For those interested in this apartment, please learned from my lessons: Be careful about your rent payment; especially for foreigners who will be relocating after end of lease. Consider 3rd level rooms if you want quiet environment or be prepared to wear ear muffs at night. For auto pay mode, you may missed payment by a few days when auto pay mode expired. I have friends who are still staying in the apartment and have shared the same experience as me. Late payment fees will be charged to you when you missed payment as auto pay expired for reasons such as lease extension. This is completely avoidable if office would just call the tenants directly instead of serving paper notice on the doorsteps. If you want to end a lease, do not just call. Request for end of lease document and sign it immediately.

Overall, I gave 2 stars instead of 1 because of the friendly help I received from some of the staff during my period...

UPDATE 7/22/24: PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS! I promise you, it’s not worth it. I wish my original review was the only issues I had. This place almost cost me my mental/physical health. I’m out and free of this hell hole and I would NEVER recommend it to anyone. If I can spare one person, then I’ve done my job. DO NOT LIVE HERE! It’s a miracle their ratings are even this high. From the mold in units, paper thin walls, lack of communication, overpriced fees, all the way to management, it’s a nightmare. And for management: there’s a special place for you as pentance for what y’all are doing to these people here. RUN FAR AWAY!!

I am seriously so upset that I even have to leave this review because I’ve been wanting to be a resident at The Reserve for YEARS. I was soooo ecstatic about moving in. There were a couple of red flags before I moved in that I shouldn’t have ignored. I will preface this by saying Eriana was a sweetheart through the process and she definitely deserves a raise, and I don’t blame any of this on her whatsoever. If anything, corporate should know better. Outside of some hiccups with moving in, being in the unit is what disgusts me. I wish I would’ve taken a better look before paying and signing the papers. The first thing I noticed was the lightbulbs clearly hadn’t been changed. So I requested for them to be changed. I moved in Oct. 10. It is now Oct. 22. They weren’t changed so I went and bought light bulbs and took the fixtures down and changed them myself, even though the FIRST changing should be on The Reserve, and that is stated in the contract. Second, I know every complex has a cleaning company, but I always detail clean when I move into a new unit. I have never been so disgusted in my life. After throughly taking things apart, I found mold, some oozing stuff under my fridge that smelled rotten, caked up old food from the previous owners, and hair everywhere. It is so repelling, that I have stopped my detail cleaning because it makes me gag. Whoever is hired to be the cleaners…shouldn’t be, respectfully. Because not even a child could miss this stuff. Third, the water pressure in both of my bathrooms are sooo incredibly low, and my master shower makes this annoying high pitched noise IF I can even get it to come on. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Lastly, I didn’t realize how paper thin the walls were. I can hear full on conversations and now I know my neighbor’s business, lol. To say for what the residents pay for, the units should be much better than this. I understand we are paying more for the amenities, but we still have to live in the units, and sadly they’re neglected. I have lived in low income housing before and never experienced anything like this. The Reserve is worse. I’m so sorry to even have to say it, because again, from the outside it looks fantastic. I am so upset and having the WORST buyers remorse. Hopefully, this can spare someone else. I caution you to not make the same mistake I did, and THOROUGHLY check everything before signing the papers and paying high rent for this. Hopefully, I’ll be able to update this review with some positive...

This is my experience of Building 4 on the 3rd floor and I hope your's is better. Do you want the good or the bad first? Okay here is the bad from Building 4.

1st bad: Move in got pushed back to mid August '22 because of a leaking roof, so no problem right? Wrong! I shortly discovered another leak just 4 months later (Jan '23) and it took 5 months (May '23) for the problem to be addressed after submitting multiple work orders from January to May. It had leaked so long that a dark MOLD began to build up on the ceiling. So a hole was cut in the ceiling and left unattended for 2 months. So yeah I had a hole in my closet. maintenance came and attempted to use Clorox wipes in March to remove mold also. (Pictures attached) Roofers can in July and banged a lot on the roof, said that it was fixed. It rained a few days later and the leak was still there. Luckily I did not experience the Great Freon Depression of Summer '23 so I can not speak on the multiple AC units that went out all summer long.

2nd bad: Be weary of your neighbors, I got a bad building and had nasty neighbors that always placed trash, shoes, and their kids toys outside there doors, in front of stairs and even parking lot. It took way too many complaints to rectify this situation. Some of the older residents don't abide by the leash rule so a dog or two may chase you. And I don't know why but they can't park in between the lines properly. Other neighbors let their children tear up the landscape and trash the area as well. Also had a neighbor that had multiple children and they ran in the apartment all day and the building sounded like a bowling alley unfortunately. Not fair at all for the price of rent you pay. Wish they had checked the property a bit more and enforced the lease firm and fairly across the board. (Pics attached)

3rd bad: So rather then fight this issue the lease was coming close to end term, so I decided to just find another apartment. Well new apartment called The Reserve at Gulf Hills and The Reserve at Gulf Hills unethically withheld my rental verification. It was later disclosed that it was an error.

1st Good: I don't know if there was any good, I mean it's an apartment and they did the normal things to keep it operational, there was no above and beyond, well not for my experience at least. Amenities are fine and dandy but I don't/can't live in the amenities area, I needed my apartment to be livable.

I hope this helps someone or even help the Apartment get it right for their...