Wintercrest Village Apartments - Lakeside, California

Johnny B.

I’ve been a tenant for three or four years now, a solid place to hang my hat. Relatively quiet community. Well kept and the front desk staff is very friendly and responsive. The pool rules are a little overly strict. But there is laundry on site. And a gas station and grocery store right next-door.

Shout out to Kerri , Lauren from the front desk and Matt from maintenance for being awesome!

Tyla M.

After moving around a couple places in San Diego I’m so fortunate to have found these apartments. My husband and I absolutely love it here. I feel more than comfortable raising my son here. Everyone in the office is outstanding and always prompt. The maintenance team is quick and proficient. It’s quiet. The bedroom is plenty of space for my family. The community around us is great.

Peggy H.

After living here for many years, I feel qualified to provide an honest review, highlighting the great things about this complex, and hopefully, illustrating the areas for improvement. First, to the management, I would encourage you to consider sending out monthly Google surveys to collect feedback from the residents to better understand what is working and what is not.

Areas of concern: The cigarette smoking is out of control. Based on my observations, nearly 1/5 of the residents are cigarette smokers. If you are unfortunate enough to end up in the same building as one of the smokers, you can enjoy never opening your windows or doors again. Even going for a stroll around the complex, you are accosted by the smell of cigarettes all hours of the day and night. I just want to put it out there, if the apartment complex began transitioning into a smoke-free community, they could begin charging more in rent, which seems like a better business idea to me.

Next, the trash areas are not well-kept. It is not uncommon to see the areas around the dumpsters covered in trash from top to bottom. This could be in part due to the unhoused population who goes through the dumpsters at night. One solution to this problem would be to install cameras in the trash areas. This would help address any of the residents who are contributing to the mess.

Another downside is the two small workout studios are not A/C controlled, so they easily reach 90 degrees in the summertime. Next, dog owners have no accountability for cleaning up after their pets. There is dog poop on the side walks, the turf, and the grass. Would installing more doggie bag stations help alleviate this problem? Maybe. Would installing more cameras around the property and following up on instances of this happening alleviate this problem? Hopefully.

Lastly, the complex does not accept electronic payments. This means that once a month you are physically dropping off your rent to the front office. It's not the end of the world, but it is an inconvenience.

Positive things about the complex: The management and office staff are incredibly responsive. If you submit a maintenance order, it will likely be completed same day. They take the time to listen to concerns and address them. The maintenance men are also very friendly. Next, this is an affordable community to live in. The grounds are well-maintained and the community is pretty quiet. Parking is included and visitor parking spots are scattered throughout the complex. Although I don't use the pools, the pools look very nice and taken care of. Finally, there is not "pet rent!" You pay a one time deposit for your pet to live in this community.

With all of that said, I would recommend living in this community if you enjoy a quiet complex with great office staff. If the complex addresses the areas of concern, particularly the cigarette smoking, I would easily rate it a perfect place to live.

samantha I.

I typically like to wait to leave reviews. I've only been here a few weeks but want to help out anyone looking with my experience so far.
We love this place! The layout is ideal for us and we are really enjoying the small patio and storage closet.
The pet policy here only involves a small deposit rather than monthly pet rent which I think is great(our new kitties sit in a window all day why would they need to pay rent anyway other than a snuggle?)
We enjoy that you get two parking spots or last place was only one so bonus. Though guest parking can be difficult here. For us not much of a problem but if you're a person with frequent visitors something to keep in mind. So far everyone we've met whose worked here has been lovely and the property is very well maintained.
Small but of info you may need if you're looking. This place is perfect if you're military or a federal employee like my husband. There is a zero tolerance Marijuana policy here so you will never get stuck worrying about your neighbors second hand. That was a legitimate problem at our last place. There is a waitlist so if your interested get on early!!

Joshua H.

Clean environment throughout complex with central air and heating.

2 pools and Jacuzzis that are legit.
2 small gyms that are awesome.
Parking gets tight for visitors.
Plenty of Laundry rooms.
Quick reliable maintenance from friendly staff.

There is a 10% late fee, so don't be late.

Overall great place to live!

Iron M.

Apartment is great, however, really strict on quiet hours before 9am but if you work late and need to sleep past 8 am this place isn’t for you. They have gardeners from Monday-Saturday that work during quiet hours. Not sure why they need gardeners everyday. There is no enjoying your morning especially Saturdays because all you hear is really loud noise constantly for hours from 8am to 3 sometimes. People who work grave yard or really late night shifts can’t get any sleep with that noise. They aren’t considerate that it is very annoying to have gardeners 6 days out of the week and it’s VERY LOUD. I don’t understand how they expect for tenants to respect quiet hours when they don’t. Hearing that noise everyday during the week is very annoying. They need to come max twice a week and especially not on a Saturday. People want to enjoy weekends not having to wake up to an alarm but instead we have listen to a leaf blower for HOURS and wake up to that. They should also not be working during quiet hours.

Tyler

Experience here has been great outside of not getting warnings about ongoing events. Such as remodeling an apartment next door, cutting trees, doing roofing above your apt, etc. One staff member is extremely rude/unprofessional, but the rest have been awesome. They do a great job maintaining this place.

J. O.

Positives:
+ Nice staff and leasing office
+ Pretty Landscaping
+ Great area close to everything you need
+ Nice pool area

Negatives:
- Laundry rooms smell really bad, machines don't wash clothes well, machines break often, and they're expensive. Use a nearby laundromat off-site because this one is a borderline scam
- The "gym" is laughably bad. 1 rusty, old, multi-use lifting machine, 1 half-broken bicycle machine, and 1 treadmill all crammed in a very small room with no fan or circulation. Just use the Crunch next door or Planet Fitness down the street
- Large cockroaches invade the apartments every summer looking for moisture and love the mulch used in the landscaping
- Pest control is a joke. They straight up do not do a check unless you are home watching them do it. If they show up to inspect while you are gone, they won't even check but say they did
- Guest parking is terrible
- Strict rules and regulations, while some of them helpful, often end up screwing you over in some way or another.

I wouldn't recommend living here unless you have no better options.