Chimneys of Cradlerock

I wanted to give 0 stars but it is not possible. If you need and apartment PLEASE STAY AWAY FROM ANY OF THESE BUILDINGS. First the apartments are full of mice in the walls and all over the house. They know the issue and they do not care. We have called many times to report the issue and nothing has been done. we have a toddler in the house and the mice are in her room as well. THEY DONT CARE!!! They actually told me I cannot until next month because they wont give me my deposit back. I have called numerous times for maintenance on different issues and they show up when they please and don’t fix it. I cant sleep at night because all I hear are the mice and squirrels all over the walls all night long. Its to the point where they are just in the house as soon as it is dark and hang out all over the house. Every time I wake up the house is full of mice dropping. it is sick and unsanitary. WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY LIFE! DONT GET FULLED BY THE PRICE AND THE SQUARE FT. THAT HOW THEY GOT ME.

Went to go on a tour and I can honestly say it was one on the best tours I have been on! Courtney is really nice and professional. The the apartments are huge and has a lot of storage.

We lived here for 18 months. This is an honest review of things we wish we knew before moving in.
Management: The office is a huge revolving door. We had 3 – 4 property managers and the property is so poorly managed I wonder how the buildings are standing. If you want something done, your phone call will never be returned or no one will pick up. If you go in person, the office will either not help or will promise to do something, but not actually do it until you have tried at least 5 times. The staff are often rude and lack basic customer service skills.
Mice: One of our cats caught a baby in the house and we heard them in our walls. When we called, they said they already knew about it for a while, but didn’t want to do anything because there were so many pets in our building.
Maintenance: Another huge revolving door. Within the first 2 months, a leak from upstairs caused a whole section of our ceiling to be torn out. A service member looked at it, left, and told no one or did anything while our carpet flooded. We had to keep calling until the manager knew about it. The first week we moved in the toilet in our bathroom broke, stunk up our whole house, and it took weeks to fix because it was «not a priority» because we had a second toilet. We went over a month without a dryer when it broke because «it was not a priority». We really had to fight for that one. We also pulled up our carpet in our living room and found cat pee and old litter, and our entire house smelled. It took a month after this discovery and persistent follow ups to get new carpet. Once, they set our alarm off and didn’t even call us; they left and the police showed up. You get the idea – expect problems, but don’t expect them to be fixed in a timely fashion, unless you have hours for calling/​reminding.
Children/​Vandals: We have seen children running in front of cars, dangling animals out of windows, throwing dog poop at people’s cars and front doors, throwing balls at cars on purpose, and literally beating people’s cars with their fists and other objects. Don’t consider your property safe.
Parking: Let’s just say this… GOOD LUCK. A significant portion of the parking is «reserved» and you have to pay $ 25/​month to reserve. For example, the building perpendicular to ours had only ONE spot that was not reserved/​handicapped. And that «reservation» is no guarantee; it took over 6 months for them to paint the spots because you couldn’t read that they were reserved and that whole time people kept parking in our spot. You can’t call the towing company either because only the office can, which is closed when these infractions occur.
Trash/​Grounds: The members of the community take no pride in it because the management clearly does not. People do not throw their trash bags in the bins; they leave them on the ground, which gets everywhere. The wooden gates to the bins are always wide open and unsightly. Many people steal grocery carts from Giant and leave them around the neighborhood. Don’t be surprised if you step in dog poop or your next door neighbors literally throw their trash off their balconies into the woods.
Amenities: There are none, unless you count a decrepit playground, a mulch pit as a «dog park», or dog bag stations that never have refills as «amenities.»
Price: At first, this was fantastic. We received a military discount and the price was very low for the size of our two bedroom. However, when it was time to renew, they wanted $ 200+ more a month for the conditions we lived in – no thanks.
The positives: The reason we moved here was the space. There is a ton of closet space and the apartments are bigger than most complexes in the area. It is quiet and the price was great for a young couple. However, none of this was worth the hell we have been through living here.
Summary: Do yourself a favor and stay away from this place. They are struggling to find renters for a reason.

I was apprehensive of living in this place coz of the reviews so I know how much they matter for apartments. I won’t lie, I didn’t like the first apartment they showed me. The paint was peeling off, the devices were old. Then we scoured all of Columbia and found this place was the cheapest and the location was good too. So we came back and they said a new apartment is ready. This new apartment was splendid. It was like all the other places I visited with 1600 $ month for 2 bed 2 bath. At 1400 $ a month for two bed 2 bath, this was a steal in Columbia. Our floor plan is perfect for roommates. Both bedrooms have bathrooms connected from the inside and both bedrooms are equally big. I haven’t had any issues with the staff or maintenance. Our patio opens directly into the woods but we haven’t had any safety concerns. What’s more we got a move in special of first month’s rent free!

I wanted to leave a review to balance out the 1 star left previously. Almost nobody feels compelled to go give a positive review when they’re satisfied with their experience at any sort of establishment. You should keep that in mind when looking for apartments.
Before I moved in a few weeks back, i was concerned about bugs as many reviews mention that. I have yet to see one inside my apartment or in the building itself.
Here’s what you can expect now.
With interior entry doors, you are going to have a little noise when people come and go, but it’s not much in my building.
The grounds have appeared well kept since I have been here, with people coming around and keeping them up every week or so.
Kids play outside and walk to school on their own here, which is actually nice to see. That said, kids are noisy sometimes at the park, but only until about 8PM.
The trash is collected often enough to not be overflowing from the dumpster near me.
There is ample parking available at nearly every time of day.
The fit and finish of the inside of the apartment is lacking, frankly. This is the only negative I have had so far with the apartment. They used inexpensive molding on the bottoms of the walls, so there are gaps/​visible lines in them. That’s not a big deal once furniture is moved in though. The fan/​light in my apartment is noisy and jiggles. The doors on the storage closets that line one side of the apartment are a mixture of ones that fully close, don’t fully close, are dead quiet, and are annoyingly loud. The painting was sloppy. The cabinet doors have no hardware and sometimes stick closed, with one door that won’t close all the way and stay that way. Many of these things you can fix yourself should you feel inclined. The biggest downside is the creaking floors from above and my own creaking floors. There are some spots that almost feel like holes that have just been covered with carpeting. That’s only one place in my apartment though.
Overall I am happy here. My neighbors are quiet and polite, and when you look around, you will find FAR worse places in Columbia to love. The new management staff has corrected many of the problems that used to exist here, and have been helpful at every interaction so far.

By far the WORST place I’ve EVER lived. I cringe when I see others touring this Chimneys of Cradlerock, they really don’t know what they’re in for. I, too, read poor apartment reviews (we moved in July 2013) but I was turned on by the spaciousness and yes the fireplace plus we’d lived in a different Aimco property in a different state saw terrible reviews before but our experience was great there. BAD IDEA! If you should see my review, don’t even bother coming to tour. I mean what I say when I tell you choosing to live here is by far the single worst mistake I’ve made. Just after the Christmas holiday, we received notice that there would be bed bugs inspection. Yes, bed bugs! After a brief walk through by maintenance and a representative from Ehrlich (the pest control company), they deemed our unit to be affected. No communication and then almost two weeks later they give us a laundry list of what to do to prepare for treatment which was to occur in two days. We were told to launder every piece of clothing and linen in our unit and then dry on high heat. In the middle of a three week treatment in which you must literally turn your life upside down and place everything into tightly sealed bags after washing and drying EVERYTHING, our dryer went up. Three maintenance reports AND a visit to said-​new management later… NOTHING. The dryer was still broke and the bed bugs were assumbly munching our hides each night. My husband was the host (eek). We guessed we should get used to flesh eating bed bugs for awhile when all of a sudden two months later, no more bed bugs. They never completed the treatment and ended up replacing our dryer several weeks after reporting it broken. In addition to the bed bugs, we’ve also encountered roaches. I am ashamed to even write that bc we are as clean as we can be but still roaches can be seen in our kitchen during the day or night. At Chimney’s of Cradlerock there is a large population of families who receive low income housing vouchers and while that is great for them to be able to live somewhere w ample space for their children and themselves, we are a hardworking young married couple shelling out upwards of $ 1400 to live in a bug infested dump. This place is nothing short of a hellhole! I’m not even sure it matters which unit you choose. Roaches and bed bugs don’t discriminate. NOISE allowed in by poor sound insulation at all hours of the night doesn’t discriminate. Do yourself a favor and look at a nice place like Gateway Village or possibly even Lazy Hollow even though I will personally steer clear of corporate driven Aimco properties after this horrible, dreadful experience. I’m telling you this place is the absolute worst spare yourself the heartache and trust me on my word!!! Management will probably try to reach out and «help» by spewing a bunch of their corporate policies but at this rate I’ve heard it all. At this point when I reach out with an issue they already know how dissatisfied I am with my experience that they don’t even try to make amends, they just want to quick fix my issues with my unit and then ask me to remove my reviews. Also to keep in mind you will surely get nickled and dimed here ($ 10 per car for parking $ 10 for trash that’s hardly picked up – the garbage is disgusting and no one bothers to use the dumpsters, trash is stowed all around it, a monthly for pest control fee for which they only pay your unit a visit IF you’re having a problem but keep in mind there are roaches here so you WILL have one! $ 10 for handling lol). Our lease has been more like a sentence but fortunately we are almost finished our term. I just feel that such a horrid leasing experience should be shared to warn others of what they could be getting into.