Sabal Chase Apts

Awful. Atrocious. Miserable. Let's dissect this pitiful excuse for habitability. I have lived here for about a half-year now and am very ready to move on with my life.



1) The Quality of the Apartment:

Innocuous at first lookthrough - All the faucets worked, most of the (rather underwhelming) apartment was in adequate condition. Upon living here, though, I have found that everything is extraordinarily cheaply made. Everything. It will all not function properly You put in a work order and they send a guy to say "yeah, that's how we provide it to you". All of the windows are turned sideways so there is no proper sealing. Water will leak into the apartment on a thunderstorm (man, would have been nice to know before signing a contract saying I'll pay a fine for any mold!) and there's nothing to be done other than get the rags out when it starts to storm. It's pathetic. And you know what? The quality of the actual apartment seems to be the best thing here (though driving around the whole complex seems to reveal that we had the best spot).



2) The Quality of Life:

Miserable. Depressing. Fearful. In the half-year of dwelling here I have witnessed, by day, _obnoxiously_ loud car music that will constantly shake your floor, screaming children, pounding walls, screaming housewives being beaten, and fistfights in the parking lots. By night, it is much more scary. I have woken up at 3:00 due to flashing lights of police vehicles. Another 3:00 wakeup call due to the neighbors screaming at each other and banging all over the walls. Another 3:00 because of _six gunshots right outside of my window_. This is a very scary place to live (and I've lived in Washington Heights in NY). I do not feel safe here. This is not only a predominantly low-income place, this is a predominantly low-education, low-socially-cultured place. The people here are either down on their luck or straight up animals. And the imbalance towards the latter paints the entire place as a zoo. The gates are beaten down, often broken (by malfunction or by malice? The dents are so numerous you can't tell if they are new). People knock on doors around asking for money or to join their makeshift church. This is a swamp for the insane. A horrid universe where the absurdity of religion is the only source of positivity for the stupid and morally inept. This is the modern-day incarnation of Kurosawa's 'The Lower Depths', and details just how low humans can sink. The beatings. The Screaming. The child neglect. The depression overwhelms even the most stoic.



Another thing worth mentioning. At the time of writing (2013), the internet situation is past pathetic. The only _real_ internet they offer is AT&T DSL. And even so, it's half the speed of usual offerings. And that's if you're lucky enough to be able to even get that internet. AT&T, in their usual brilliance, has not properly set up the networks here, so only half of the residents are able to sign up for service. I've continually called for months to ask for an opening to no result. So no internet here. The only option available to us is dial-up or sattelite internet (for the uninitiated, sattelite internet is a scam and you're better off with dial-up).



Had I more money and better plans I would be out of here as soon as possible. As it stands, I must suffer a few more months before being able to break my lease here. If you want a dangerous, depressing, internet-free, quality-free, culture-free, lifeless zoo that sucks all willpower to actually dig yourself out of economic despair, this is a great sandtrap to ensnare you. It has been very difficult to stay positive in general in the cesspool that is Fort Pierce, but Sabal Chase is where the misery festers and foments.