This page has older comments about The Willows Apartments.
2005-10-23 16:08:19 THis is by far the worst place I have ever lived. Not recommended at all. —JohnNash
2006-02-16 23:05:58 can anyone tell me more about the Willow? How good or bad it is and why? —LienTran
2006-03-13 00:55:35 I looked at about two dozen places in Davis and decided to go with the Willows. The two units I looked at were the 2B1B for $1105 and 2B2B for $1190 as of March 2006. The exterior of the complex looked very well kept. The interior of the units were nice, although one of the apartments I saw had pretty old grey looking carpet (the other two had newer tan carpet). The cabinates were a tan wood color and the kitchen's in both units were spatious with plenty of counter space. The living room in the 2B1B was smaller than the one in the 2B2B (overall the 2B1B is 100 sq ft smaller). The bedrooms were decent size at roughly 11'x11' in the 2B1B and 10'x10' and 10'x15' in the 2B2B. Overall I had a good impression of the complex and the units when I checked out the place. —GuyGordon
2006-04-17 16:37:49 Greg Stewart at the management office is awesome! He was very friendly and helpful when looking for a place. The place I have is upstairs with a deck for watching the sunset. Community washers/dryers are okay. Grounds are really clean. Parking is decent. Complex is spacious. Circle K is across the street and has many student necessities. My unit has new carpet, average oven and electric burners, and really hot water, w00t! =) Quiet part of town, few parties. Great for studying but definitely closer to the action than Woodland, Winters, or even Sacramento. —GeorgeRobertson
2007-04-26 16:01:47 I've lived here for 3.5 years and have been happy with it. Managers have changed several times - some are better than others. Grounds are clean, parking is open and available, pool and hot tub are pretty nice and usually available. Laundry room with plenty of W/D. This place is nice and quiet. Maintanance is great - things are fixed quickly. Appliances/cabinets/etc. are not particularly high quality but are entirely functional. I would continue living here, except that prices keep going up and my salary hasn't. —rachelss
2007-06-29 20:25:26 There are tennis courts at The Willows? Where? —Wendy
2008-03-05 18:59:35 This place was fantastic. I'm surprised there aren't more comments on here, since the Willows really does stand out in my experience. We moved to Davis very late in the fall, and the Willows staff were helpful getting us set up over the phone. It made what would otherwise have been a difficult challenge of finding housing while out of state very easy. Since then we've had nothing but positive experiences with our neighbors and especially the management. They're more like neighbors themselves, and there are usually snacks in the office. They put out a monthly newsletter, too— and other things that make you feel like part of a community. I'm not sure what the first reviewer's reservations are, but then it's been 5 years, so I guess things have changed. —jess&will
2008-03-19 13:44:18 Has anyone had roach problems here? —lindsayream
This comment was left by a manager at The Willows
2008-04-17 15:24:14 I lived at The Willows before I graduated and I absolutely loved it! The pool is 24 hours and so is the fitness room! I could always find parking and I never had a problem with the other residents. Very quiet place to live and study! And I loved using their clubhouse for study groups during finals. I would definitely recommend this place! Plus they have the best cookies!! —Kristina123
2008-05-14 19:31:59 To respond to the questions on here: The pictures are pretty descriptive. The second picture was taken from inside the clubhouse. The third picture appears to be a sink outside a bathroom. Some bathrooms are separate from their sinks. The fourth is a kitchen inside an apartment. Notice that the cabinets are an unfinished or barely finished wood. Apartments are large and spacious. Apartment layout is good, with the exception of the bathrooms.
There are no tennis courts at The Willows.
Greg Stewart is not a current manager.
The managers are generally quite good, and were among the best at the places that I checked out. We've switched managers several times of late, but they have all been good, and are quite pleasant.
Laundry: There are approx. 8 washers and 8 dryers per laundry room (I believe there are two such rooms). I've never had a problem getting a washer or dryer regardless of the time of day. However, the capacity of the machines is not very high, and the quality of the washing and drying can be inconsistent, esp. the drying.
Usually, the complex is quiet, however there are some apartments that are very noisy. Sound insulation is not particularly good, and you can sometimes hear people in other *buildings*. Management is generally quite good at dealing with disruptive residents. It is also possible to hear the Canada geese in West Pond, and from time to time, cars on the nearby streets.
Maintenance response time has varied from a few minutes to weeks or months, depending on the problem. Easy problems have generally been fixed quickly. Hard ones may not be fixed.
Apartments are in generally good condition, although you can see evidence of past repairs that have been painted over.
Someone asked about roaches. I've never seen one here. Spiders show up frequently.
Kristina is most likely one of the managers (there is a manager named Kristina, and as noted by someone on her user page, she logged in from the same IP as Willows Management.)
They provide free WiFi in the pool and clubhouse area - another possible source of the common IP with Willows Management, although it is unlikely that a past resident would come to the Willows to access the free WiFi to post to the Davis Wiki about their past experience living at the Willows. :-)
Distance to campus is approx. 4 miles. There are safe bike paths to campus. The P and Q line stop right outside the complex. Time by bus to and from campus is about 15 minutes. If you are in shape, you can beat the bus on your bike.
The complex is next to farmland. You will get lots of wind and pollen here. Several buildings were badly damaged during the heavy rain and wind at the beginning of the year. Many building roofs were ripped open by the wind, and some apartments experienced leaks through the holes in the roofs. Management did a good job of triaging the problem. A subsequent windstorm a month or two later also ripped many tiles from the building roofs. Flying roof tiles can make quite a bang when they hit the walls of the buildings!
The complex uses the Davis Model Lease - sort of. There are about 12 pages of additions and modifications to the lease, so it isn't really the Davis Model Lease.
Rent is comparable to other West Davis complexes. The price per square foot here is probably a bit better than at complexes closer to campus (presumably because this is about as far away as you can get - the Welcome to Davis sign is right next to the complex.)
The closest place to get groceries is The Marketplace. There is a Circle K across the street. It mainly offers overpriced junk food. Gas at the Circle K seems to be cheaper than other locations closer to campus.
The units have effective central heating and AC that works well, even in the hottest and coldest weather that we have in Davis. Note that if your AC unit fails over the weekend, it is not considered a maintenance emergency unless the temperature is above 85 degrees.
There is an emergency maintenance answering service. You can also submit requests online at the apartment website. Requests go to a Tandem office somewhere, and are transmitted to the Willows office, and are generally addressed quickly.
The buildings are located quite close to each other. If you have your blinds open, your neighbors will have a nice view. Landscaping is reasonably good by Davis standards, which is a good reason to keep your blinds open. The contracted landscapers often start using leaf blowers at 8 AM, which is a disadvantage if you wanted to sleep past that time.
Closets are large and plentiful. Refrigerators are large and plentiful. Ok, you actually get only one refrigerator.
Parking is also plentiful. A sticker is required to park here, although there is also quite a bit of street parking, as the complex borders quite a bit of street.
Comcast is your only option for internet service or cable TV (unless you get satellite). The DSL central office is to far away to provide service. Comcast's service has been reliable (2 downtime events), however if you need service from them, you will need an appointment, which may take several days to get. They have very poor customer service.
There are several pretty willow trees on the grounds.
The cookies are indeed quite good.
The clubhouse (a source of tasty cookies) can be reserved for evening and weekend use. —WillowsResident
2008-08-03 06:27:12 It's a great place and management is always friendly and helpful. Rooms are all clean and new compared to the other old, decrepit, and/or creaky apartments you can find in Davis. Like other people mentioned above, maintenance responds fast.
My only complaint is about the freaking pigeons which are always on the roof early in the morning, cooing and making noise. They have woken me up a few times and I would not be able to fall asleep again. I wanted to buy a BB gun in order to permanently silence these rats with wings, but my lease is almost over, so I won't bother.
I definitely recommend this place especially if you are looking for a good study environment. None of our neighbors threw any big parties in the last year we were here, and the location is away from downtown which cuts down on the general noise level. Yet the apartment complex is close to stores like Safeway, which is only about a mile away. —MattLow
2008-08-20 16:59:53 I've lived here for a year and I'm staying. It's very clean, quiet, and I haven't had any problems. I've enjoyed having 24-hour access to the pool, spa & laundry rooms, and Management has been friendly and accessible. Yes, the pigeons coo in the morning! I kind of like it, though, but I'm on the first floor so it's not very loud. I've noticed that (maybe in response to the comment a couple of months ago?) that notices are now being left on our doors when we receive a package in the office from Fed Ex/UPS/DHL. Since many offices have a policy of not accepting packages at all, it's nice that our office will take them and sign for them. I ride my bike to campus often, and although it's a little further away (takes me about 20 minutes, although I don't ride fast!), most of it is along the tree-lined bike path on Russell Blvd., which feels very safe because it's separate from the road and you aren't riding near the cars. —AMcAdow
2008-11-03 16:39:31 I've lived here for a little more than a year and generally find it a nice place to live. The amenities are pretty basic, but generally kept clean and I've never had a problem with noisy neighbors or parking. The only majors negatives are the large number of pigeons that have decided to roost here. They %&$* on everything including your car and/or bicycle and are amazingly noisy as a whole. So far the management and Tandem haven't been responded to multiple requests on the subject, but I'm holding out hope they will do something. —jasonb
