Willow Lakes Estate

I thought this place would be amazing because of all they say they do for you. Was waiting to turn 55 to live here. OMG what a let down. They do not really do much of what they say they will. They are nice till they got you. After that is all misinformation. If you work full time and need to get something too bad for you they only have weekday daytime hours. What kind of rental place does that? The office worker is rude and dismissive. They do not care for the safety of the residents. Buy at your own risk. Half of what they told me was lies.

I moved to Willow Lake Estates. They're all manufactured homes. You buy them depending on the size you want, and you pay rent for the land that you're sitting on. They're mobile homes, and it's all independent living. I love it; they have everything out here that you can possibly need. We only deal with the people in the office because you're totally on your own. They're knowledgeable, they're friendly, and if you have a question they answer right away. This place is only for people fifty-five and older. We're right near the river so we can go fishing, boating, paddle boating, and all kinds of stuff. They do all the outside maintenance like mowing the grass and shoveling snow. They cut the grass today; they cut it every week. The inside is your responsibility because it's your house. It's everything that I wanted; it's everything I'm looking for. It's close to shopping, but you do have to drive if you want to go to the store. It's like a regular house, and I have my two dogs. I looked at other fifty-five-plus communities, but this place is far superior to them.

The absolute worst trailer park you have ever seen. They charge ridiculously high lot fees, collecting nearly $10 million in rent, but they don't perform any maintenance in the park. There are 4 fire hydrants that haven't worked for 3 years. The laundromat roof has been leaking for over three years and they refuse to spend the money to replace it. The roads, curbs and driveways are horrific. One resident fell in a pot hole and broke her ankle and they refused to compensate her. They started to replace the seewall around the lake 7 years ago and haven't completed that project yet. The street signs are all old, faded and crooked. We have water outages all the time because the infrastructure is so old and then we have to boil our water because it's not drinkable. There are at least 30 abandoned homes in the park that are old, moldy and perfect places for skunks and raccoons to hide so we are inundated with skunk smells at night. And since the living conditions are so poor that no one wants to buy a house in here, they rent houses out but they don't have a large enough maintenance crew to keep the rental houses maintained. Needless to say, you really don't want to buy or rent a house in this community.

This place is simply amazing. A great place to live. They have several types of "mobile" homes to choose which all are modern in style and fairly priced. They have a huge club house and host many activities there. They have a big lake that you can fish on. It is located close to downtown Elgin. If I was retired now this is where I would want to live.