condition of pools,lakes & gardens Phase 1

 we visited Roda recently & found that the condition of the pools,lakes & gardens have deteriated since we were there at the end of July , the main problems are :-

 The grassed areas are scorched & burnt

 The planted areas & shrubs in many places have died

 The pool was dirty
 
 the lake was very dirty - nothing new there!!!!

 sprinkler system in some areas coming on during the day, in our case at the end of our terrace making it dangerous

 we managed to speak to Marisol in person from our comunidad, she explained that all owners on P1 will receive a letter explaining the reason for this.

 Basically ,she explained that the problems arose when there was a change in the gardening company ( caladonia green to the present one ) it seems that caladonia green expected to have the contract long term, when they lost the contract, they basically sabotaged some of the pool equipment & sprinkler system, hence the state of them now.

 we mentioned the continued state of the lake areas & suggested that they would be better filled in & grassed over ,she said that it would need 100% agreement in our comunidad & that some owners don't want them removing!!!! Personally i don't  know of any owners who like the lake areas, if you do please make yourself known.

 There is also a problem with the water pressure again causing sprinkler problems, at the moment there is nothing to make people aware that the pressure has fallen ,this is again going to be rectified??

 Marisol explained that in the next 3 -4 weeks work will be undertaken to rectify these problems .

 You can contact Marisol  :-  info@housingcomunidades.com   for more information

And I thought I was the only  one with a complaint!!

I must be truthful, I loved the water features when the were first put in.  They have been neglected and I feel that the adminstrators (community) took over ownership whilst they were in very poor shape.

I have friends who live in a 1st floor apartment and I have to say  they  do look disgusting from their apartment.  However, this is no excuse or reason to fill them in.  If they were looked after properly, I feel, they  should be  lovely and we shouldn't accept anything less.  

I would love to hear other views on this and the poor garden maintenance.  Portman gardening were in charge when I was at Roda in June so how come everything (except the lakes) was fine then.  I feel we are being fobbed off by the administrator who is blaming someone else.

Hi all,

We were at Roda last week, had a great time weather was fab. Really impressed with the club house. We were also very disappointed with the grass shrubs and trees we are on phase two and we thought phase one looked a lot better, we understand that there was a meeting on Monday with the gardener's to try and resolve the problems. What we were more upset about was the amount of dog mess all along the area from the offices up to the second roundabout, we even saw mess around the children play area. We think dog owners should be made to either clean up this mess or they should be charged an amount to employ someone to clean this area on a regular basis, If I had young children I would be very concerned to the health hazard this mess can cause, also it does not look very nice if we have family friends or rentals visiting Roda. What do you think? We also saw dogs with owners but not on leads, it states in the rules and regulations that dogs should be on leads at all times.

Val & Martin

We returned yesterday having spent yet another great week at Roda. (we have a ground floor apartment in block 11 of Phase 1)......We both still love the place...wish we could spend more time there (but work commitments restrict us both at present) ...and are chuffed to bits with our investment!

However...and unfortunately I have to say there is a 'however' ...we are also extremely disappointed with the state of the gardens, plants etc and the old 'can of worms' ...the water features!

We were previously out there end of June/begining of July and since then the grass at the front of our lounge area has disappeared ...we are almost back to bare soil and the lavender and othe plants surrounding the water feature look a real mess. 

As for the water feature ...what can we say ...it goes from bad to worse...the 'delightful' blue paint is peeling off and the water is dirty. What a huge, huge shame. We both like the principal of having a water feature and DO NOT want them just 'grassed over'. We believe that if they were handed over to the correct company they could form the pleasing features that they were intended to be....surely it's not rocket science to improve them significantly?

Let's hope the recent meetings with the gardeners improve the situation significantly and quickly!

I hope I am not talking out of turn but when I was over the week before last I talked with people connected to the Golf Course as there were a number of burnt and scorched areas of grass and I was told that a week or so previously that they had had a problem with some of the machinery that mixes filtered grey water with desalinised water and too much salt had got into the system which caused the problems that were being attended to.

As the water for the gardens comes from the same source it is possible it has caused the same problems on ALL phases gardens. Certainly in Phase 2 the current gardeners have reseeded a number of areas in order to improve the appearance.

With regard to plants, I suspect that had Roda originally planted a correct mix of plants that would flower at different times this would have a more desirable option, a lot of rosemary and thyme (native to Murcia region) has been used which is very nice but not very colourful. Ongoing replanting work has been conducted by both Phase 1 and Phase 2 communities but the cost of this comes out of the community budgets, our money and gardening contracts are already a large part of the budget and is not funded by Roda, though they did promise to replace dead trees which should be done soon, fingers crossed.

Phase 1 has had nearly a year more to mature so should look better than other phases plus the density and variety of plants was much higher as this was their showcase.

I personally know that the President and Vice President of Phase 2 have both been working very hard to ensure we see gardens we can be proud of and have had a number of meetings to try and ensure the gardeners are on the ball.

I do agree about the dog mess and hope that all owners ask for this to be put onto the agenda at their AGMs as something needs to be done.

It is also annoying that some renters are using bins provide in the communal areas to leave their household rubbish rather than walk to the provided recycling bins. I would hope that all owners would ensure their renters and guests treat Roda with the same respect as the owners.