The Village on University — Local services in Peoria

Here’s the short version: If you like living in a clean and quiet area with respectful neighbors, go somewhere else. Yes, the newly remodeled apartments are nice and are good price, but the problems you’ll have just from living in this area is not worth it.

Also don't believe the current star rating. There are a lot of 5 stars from people "visiting" and about some guy at Lowes.

The long version: We lived at The Village for one full year. We had two main problems with living here- cleanliness and noise.

Noise was the number one reason we hated living here. People both in and outside the building were loud at all hours of the day.

For outside, cars would pull up to pick up residents in our building. These cars often blasted music no matter if it's 7 PM on a Wednesday or 7 AM on a Saturday. It’s loud enough it would wake us up. Last summer, we had 3 cars pulled up outside our building at 3 AM blasting music and people were dancing in the street. This was on a weekday.

For inside, some of the neighbors were loud. Not all of them, but enough to make living there miserable. Usually loud music, screaming and shouting while playing video games (yes, grown adults)... Yes, some noise is expected in an apartment building, but there was a clear lack of consideration for the fact that we live in a shared building (really not helpful when we were working from home during COVID). The walls and floors are thin, which doesn’t help. Management did send emails telling people to be considerate of their noise level, but emails don’t do anything to change people’s behavior.

Onto cleanliness. We had no problems with our apartment. It was remodeled, had new stainless steel appliances, and overall the actual apartment was great. Everywhere outside our apartment was not clean. Look at the pictures attached to this review. Trash outside people’s apartments. Dog poop bags outside entry doors that stay for weeks. Fast food trash in the parking lot. The trash is CONSTANT. Maintenance cannot keep up. If they pick up a four person Mcdonald’s meal in the parking lot on Tuesday, it will be back on Wednesday. People don’t put trash IN the dumpster. They leave their broken trash bags oozing out who knows what right outside the dumpster. The stairs from the parking lot to our apartment building had broken glass on it for months. Again, management sent out emails to tell people to pick up after their dog, to not litter, etc. but those emails didn’t do anything to help.

Minor problems. Parking is difficult and seemed to be getting worse by the end of our lease. It reached a point that I didn’t want to leave once I was parked because I knew I would be stuck parking far away with a walk once I came back.

People drive FAST and do not follow stop signs. Again, management sent out emails which didn’t help. If I had small children, I would not feel safe for them.

Power will go out for thunderstorms, even if it’s a minor thunderstorm. This is an Ameren issue and not an apartment issue, but still not fun to live with. We did not have this problem at our old apartment complex (that we wished we had stayed at instead of moving here).

Safety...Would not recommend these apartments if you are living alone, especially as a woman. Police cars are a frequent sight here. I have seen probation cars drive in. It is...interesting to live here.

Go...

My husband and I lived here for 3 years. When we moved in nothing had been cleaned there was grease in the oven, dirty bath tub dirty windows and mirrors. The whole time we lived there was a very stressful time. Terrible experiences with neighbors and issues in the building. The leasing office does not take complaints seriously. Their solution to everything was “if it’s that bad call the cops” and even the many times we did, the office did not do anything. My husband catalytic converter got stolen from his car while living here. My sisters car got stolen out of the parking lot here while she was just visiting for a few hours. We witnessed a lot of violence on the property and never had any peace due to loud neighbors. We had many many maintenance issues while living here. The maintenance team was very nice, but took a long time to get to a lot of things, and a lot of requests that we had submitted just got overlooked. They also pressure you to leave them good reviews. The last month of living here we had two giant holes in our ceiling from a storm, that nothing was done to improve. We were exposed to mold, insulation and whatever else was in the ceiling and a bunch of our belongings got ruined due to water damage. Nothing was done to compensate us for that, and we had to live like that for over a month while still paying full rent. We were lucky to be able to move out at the end of May. Now they have sent my husband and I a $752.28 bill for “cleaning” that was not done when we moved out. When the place wasn’t even clean when we moved in; and at the time we were moving out we had a two giant holes in our ceiling. We also had mice while living here, and when we moved in were told that we would have updated cabinets in our unit, and they were old, ugly and not the ones I was shown at my walk through. They also raised our rent almost $300 within the 3 years living there while making 0 improvements on the home. The leasing office is hard to get ahold of, slow to respond, and slow to care. Be aware they also try to show your unit while you are still living there as soon as you request to vacate. The halls smell bad and appear dirty. The laundry is expensive and the machines are seldom working. Living here was truly a traumatic time for my husband and I, and our family as well; this is just a small portion of the negative things we experienced there. We feel a weight lifted off our shoulders since leaving, and truly want others to know that this is not a good place to live. We don’t want to see good people go through what we went through here. I would not recommend this place as a...

My husband & I have lived here for 4 years now going on 5 so I feel I can give a fair and honest review. We do enjoy living here. We haven’t had to deal with noisy neighbors more than ‘here and there’ and I feel that’s to be expected in an apartment. Maintenance has always been very responsive and the maintenance men are always kind and helpful. We just had an electrical issue and the next morning, Tommy was on it & made sure everything was fixed that day. I’d give Tommy 5 stars, he takes his time and makes sure to communicate and update my husband or I.

The only poor maintenance experience we have had is the caulking on our tub and plaster above our bathtub. While these things were addressed quickly, the quality is poor and looks sloppy unfortunately. It does seem common to have plumbing issues here based on our experience and other reviews. I will also mention there was a time that a maintenance staff was working in our unit and left the door open long enough to let a cat out and not notice. This has only happened the once and when I reached out they were apologetic and it hasn’t happened since. Mistakes happen - thankfully all was fine and my cat didn’t go far.

We enjoy the playground, pool, and yard area near our unit. I wish the buildings were locked entry to lessen the amount of random people/solicitors walking through the halls at times. We have seen multiple times there be a large police presence at nearby buildings at the complex. However, we are aware we live in Peoria. We have had wasps at our entrance every single summer we have lived here, I’m not sure if they’ve tried to address this.

Overall maintenance is quick, respectful and communicative. Some work has been done half hazardly in the past, but nothing major. Security could be better. We have respectful neighbors in our building and enjoy our yard area available. The leasing company is a bit rigid and did require a large deposit (much more than the security deposit) to renew last year due to a few late payments (over 4 years and in small amounts, always paid as soon as possible and not far out). This turned us off a bit and seemed a tad unreasonable, but we stayed and have enjoyed the past year and feel we see improvements in trash clean up and overall facility care! I wish there were more updates done to the insides of the buildings and units, but they did install a ceiling fan upon request & that was...