Connect55+ Olathe

James

Connect55+ Olathe is a 55+ facility. There are 132 apartments in the building. The people here are just extremely outstanding. We have good relationships among the residents. We have good activities that are generated by the residents, but corporate has promised us that they would do activities and there's hardly anybody here in the four years that I've lived here. The building is seven years old and there have been 29 managers in seven years and they just can't keep them. They mostly fire them. There's hardly a management team here. When I came here, there was a manager, activities director and two maintenance men. They now don't have a manager or an activities director. The maintenance person has just been hired within the last month or so. He's just a very young guy and inexperienced. He doesn't know how to fix things. There's a nice space in the apartment and it's very livable, yet we have had a roof leak and water running down the walls. We're on the third floor. Other people have water damage in their apartment because of leaks in the walls when it rains. We're supposed to have a secure building with locked doors and you can walk in and out of several of the doors without a key. They just don't seem to be interested in maintaining the soundness of the doors. We have a cleaning crew that cleans the hallways maybe once a month or so, but some of the vendors here like cleaning crews, singers or something like that say they have a terrible time getting paid by the management and so they don't want to come back. Our management is in New York City. Most of the two-bedroom apartments are like $2,300 a month and we pay our bills on time, but we don't have the services that they promised us we'd have. I wouldn't advise anybody to move in here. We've talked to people about defects in our apartment whenever we need maintenance and we don't get it, "Can we withhold our rent?" and the answer is no, you cannot do that. If you don't like what's going on, you can just move out. I don't think we've got a clause where we can move out. We have an agreement that's one year at a time and to break that agreement, it was just impossible to do. When we moved in, they were about 40% full, and they were trying to encourage more people to move in and so their activities were pretty high. Now that it's full, it's just not the same place. In the very beginning, it was better. The activities directors just come and go within a few months, so they never can get a program really going. The residents are doing their own thing now. There'll be a group that plays cards, there will be a group that does Wii bowling, there will be a group that plays pool three times a week, and we're paying for our own potluck dinners. We bought the cakes and stuff to have the birthday celebration for people that have birthdays that month. That's something that corporate was supposed to do, but they don't do it because there's nobody here to do it. They hardly have any authority to spend money on activities. About the time they kind of get established, they're gone. They either find another job or they get fired. Usually the ones that get fired are the ones that are most proactive for the community to try to get things done. It's the management and the building maintenance that I want to rate low. We cook our own. The layout is OK, it's just not maintained. It's got elevators. They take our money, but they don't provide us with anything.

Bill25

We toured Connect55+ Olathe. It was nice, clean, and bright. The staff was just exceptional. I met the manager and activities director and the person that showed me through. All of it was top-notch. It's just several years old.

Deanna

We toured Connect55+ Olathe. They offer a few more activities than the other place. The staff who gave the tour was great. They have get-togethers with food. They do a little bit more of that where everybody can come. And the apartments are a little bit more expensive, but not a lot. My sister would prefer a two-bedroom, but she would take the one-bedroom if that's what's available.

Matt01

Connect55+ Olathe is a beautiful community. It was wonderful. I wish I could live there. But unfortunately, I can't afford it. It had the best community staff. The people who work there and live there are just phenomenal. I can't say enough good things about it. When I visited, the guy who greeted me and showed me around was fantastic. I had a resident come up to me and ask me if I was thinking about living there. They told me all about the place, how long they'd been there, and how they loved it. They have a movie theater inside the building. They have a bunch of different other things in there. They also have it where they take people to Walmart if they can't drive and to different places. They don't include meals, but they have a community worker there, and every Saturday morning, she fixes the entire property breakfast at no cost. They told me they had a kind of potluck thing at least once a week where everybody who wanted to participate brought some kind of things to eat. And then they all sit down in a big room, eat, mingle, and whatnot. I would highly recommend it to anybody who doesn't need the meals. I guarantee anybody would like it there.

Provider Response

Janet

I really liked Connect55+ Olathe. The amenities were very good. They have a huge theater room with a huge screen so you can go in and watch movies. You got the big lazy boy chairs or recliners. In fact, I went there just before the Super Bowl, and the woman said they're going to be having the Super Bowl up on that big screen, which I thought was kind of fun. They have a community room. They don't have meals there, but they have a kitchen facility, and then if you want to order something from the grocery store, they can deliver it. The layout of their apartment was very nice and it's a good size. They have all kinds of activities throughout the week. The facility was very clean. The two-bedroom, two bath includes your basic cable, which is Xfinity, and then water, sewer, and trash. So you'd be paying electric. I guesstimate it out, and it came out to $2,500 worth of expense. The rent was $1,925. I was a little worried. That was pretty tight with all my rent and the electric and all my other personal expenses, but overall, I like that one the best. Marcus was really accommodating. The facility is not that old. It's still pretty crispy.

Provider Response

Dale LX

We lived there for one-year, huge mistake and left quickly as soon as our lease was up. No cleaning contract (tenants clean common areas), 1-maintenance guy who's main job is to keep trash empty when he is off trash builds up, we had 4-facility managers in our 1-year and 3-months with no manager! Awful awful corporate leadership! Many problems with building and many bad experiences in just one-year, RUN AWAY!!

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