Arrowhead Apartments & Townhomes

"Used to live here, moved out after Spaulding bought it and jacked up the rent. The bad reviews are spot on."

"I started paying $850 two years ago. Now they want $1455 + $200 month-to-month fee because they did a little landscaping recently. The units are badly insulated, outdated, and mine wasn't clean when I moved in. There was cat litter and feces in the floor heaters. The cheap, stained cabinets hang open no matter how carefully you close them and the counter tops have gouges in them from previous tenants. It becomes incredibly humid during the summer and the loud, inefficient A/C units don't do much to mitigate the heat. During the winter, you can actually feel the cold wind from outside in the living room. Management doesn't respect your time or privacy and will send contractors outside of stated service times. Worst of all, they neglect their duties when handling other tenants. For instance, the people that moved in to replace my neighbors, in the unit immediately next to mine, like to smoke cigarettes in their basement. The basements are not sealed completely from one another and you can smell it on the ground floor after a time. Management has yet to stop them after repeated requests for assistance. Do yourself a favor and steer clear."

"Before Arrowhead was their current ownership - My recommendation would have been higher. After Arrowhead was sold to Spaulding Group LLC there were a ton of changes and updates made to the property, of course at the cost of the tenants. I am not naive to know that arrowhead needed updates, however a focus group of the current tenants to determine what they would like to see would have been advised. During renovations, landscaping was ripped out and caused for an increase of bugs in the apartments (mainly crickets). Sheds and storage space were removed from the Townhouses because "there are basements". Communication about changes and updates was not conducted in a timely manor. For example Tenants were notified that all outside furnishings had to be removed within three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) to begin updates on the following Monday - only to have those said updates happen an addition 1-2 weeks later. We were given a weeks time frame to know that new management would enter the townhouses to do an inspection (but not an exact date for when they would enter). Increase in rent was only shared when I (having 10+ years of professional housing experience) asked about the increase in rent upon new ownership (30-45%). Otherwise I firmly believe this would have have been disclosed until a new lease was provided. Previous to Spauling Group - the old owners of arrowhead would write a letter and provide rational as to why rent was increasing, not "because it is below market value". On top of all of this it took nearly 60 days to receive our full security deposit back. We were assessed carpet damage (which was indicated on the move in apartment condition form when we moved in) - After asking for a copy of this document to verify the damage, we were informed that some documents got "lost in the sale". When asking how the damage was determined to be caused by us, there was no rational provided. As great as the location is, I would highly encourage you to look elsewhere for rental needs."

"Prior to the owners selling to Spaulding Group LLC, Arrowhead offered much needed affordable housing to those in La Crosse who can't afford $1400 apartments along with the rising cost of living. Were the buildings pretty to look at with all new amenities? Not exactly, but appearance and "newness" is something many people sacrifice, including my partner and I, in exchange for a place we could afford. We did our best to care for the property and took extra steps to make sure that our indoor and outdoor spaces provided a welcoming and cared-for atmosphere. Living in Arrowhead provided us the opportunity to begin saving, however little, for a house. We began searching in February 2023 but weren't able to find much in our price range, and those that we did find ended up selling for tens of thousands over our budget. In June 2023, we made the decision to put our search on a hold for a year with the hopes that we could save up a small down-payment and that the market would settle down in 2024. In July 2023 we received a notice that Arrowhead has been purchased by Spaulding Group LLC and that we should expect a wealth of "upgrades." We questioned staff on anticipated rent increases. At the time, they said they anticipate a 30-40% increase. We were paying about $1,100/mo and were on a month-to-month lease due to the house search. In August 2023, we were offered a 12-month lease for $1,400/mo or month-to-month for a whopping $1,800/mo. We had until the end of that month to decide if we wanted to stay and never be able to afford to move out, or try to find any other source of affordable housing within a month. Why I feel the business practices, while legal, are unethical, is that residents who were not nearing the end of their lease were not notified of the increase in rent they were going to be hit with. I can only assume that this information was withheld from those tenants because Spaulding Group didn't want to allow their tenants to have enough time to search for more affordable options before their lease is up. If you can surprise someone with a rent increase in a short amount of time, they are more likely to just pay the increase so they have a place to live. My partner and I eventually found a place to live, although it is not perfect and, had time been on our side, we may not have exactly chosen this path, but we were INCREDIBLY lucky to have avoided staying in Arrowhead where we would have been financially trapped until either rent went down (ha.) or one of us found new work that paid substantially more. But this isn't all... After moving out, we were relying our security deposit to be returned to us to help with the moving expenses and increase in monthly payments. In the state of Wisconsin, landlords have 21 days to return your security deposit. After 29 days, I sent an email asking about the deposit and offering to pick it up in person. TWO WEEKS go by and nothing, so I sent another email reminding them that they are in violation of the law and our rights as tenants to sue. I had a response in less than an hour and a half saying our check should arrive early the following week, and to let them know if it doesn't arrive by Wednesday. It didn't arrive. I sent an email Wednesday night, got a response Thursday morning that it should get there by Friday. It finally arrived on Monday with a stamp that it was sent out on Thursday... But anyway, we had our check 53 days after moving out. Still not the end, however, because $150 had been deducted for damages to the carpet that were present upon our move-in and were documented on our move-in sheet. Thus began two weeks of excruciatingly slow back-and-forth emailing where we requested a copy of our move-in sheet which they lost, an explanation of how they assessed that the damages were ours without consulting the move-in sheet which we ever got an answer to, and finally having to threaten once again to sue for us to finally get our full deposit back, over 70 days after moving out. tl;dr New owners are unethical, extremely poor communication, go elsewhere."

"They treat their tenants horribly and unethically. Save yourself the nightmare."