Overall sentiment across the reviews is highly polarized: a substantial number of families and residents report excellent, compassionate care and very positive outcomes, while an equally significant portion describe serious problems with safety, sanitation, and basic nursing care. The recurring pattern is inconsistency — many reviewers praise individual caregivers, therapy teams, and certain leaders, while others experienced neglect, medication errors, infestation, and alleged wrongdoing. This split suggests the facility’s quality varies greatly by unit, shift, specific staff, and management period.
Care quality and staffing: The most frequent theme is inconsistent caregiving. Numerous reviews commend specific aides, STNAs, therapists, and a handful of nurses for individualized, skilled, and emotionally supportive care — staff are described as staying late, going out of their way, and producing strong therapy outcomes leading to residents returning home. Conversely, many reports detail slow or absent responses to call lights, delays in toileting and medication administration, use of bedpans instead of bedside toileting, soiled linens left on residents, and examples of rough handling and bruising. Medication management is a recurring concern: reviewers cite wrong pills, refused or delayed medications, pills dropped or found on floors, and missing controlled substances. Short‑staffing, staff burnout, and high turnover are commonly blamed for these lapses.
Safety, clinical oversight, and incidents: Several reviewers describe events that raise safety red flags: oxygen tanks not turned on, BiPAP tubing missing, feeding-pump equipment allegedly misplaced, and delayed transfers to ER after deterioration. There are accounts of falls, low oxygen saturations, and lack of confinement or supervision for some residents with dementia. Multiple people reported that nurses or aides were distracted (texting, on social media) while alarms or call lights sounded. These clinical lapses are coupled with claims that leadership at times failed to acknowledge or remediate problems, and in some instances families intend to report issues to regulatory boards.
Housekeeping, pest control, and infection concerns: A significant cluster of reviews alleges poor housekeeping and pest problems. Bed‑bug reports appear repeatedly and are described as chronic by several reviewers — bites, sightings, and infestation in laundry rooms and rooms are noted. Other cleanliness issues include sticky floors, empty soap dispensers, foul odors, stained carpets, moldy bathrooms, and general decrepitude in some wings. These sanitation concerns are often cited alongside clinical neglect and contribute to strong negative impressions and reported trauma.
Food and dietary management: Dining receives mixed reviews. Some families report generous portions and good meals, while many others complain that meals are cold, unappetizing, and not customized to dietary needs. Several reviewers said diabetic, low-sodium, or other dietary restrictions were not respected and that residents received the same meals regardless of medical needs. Timing problems (late lunches) and unprofessional kitchen behavior were also mentioned.
Management, communication, and administration: Reports about management are split. Multiple reviewers praise particular leaders — named directors of nursing and administrators (cited by reviewers as lending hands-on oversight) — for improving care quality, being responsive, and leading rounds. Yet there are numerous reports of unresponsive administration, rude or dishonest admission coordinators, alleged theft of donated items by staff, billing disputes, eviction/forced-discharge claims, and poor follow-up after adverse events or deaths. Several reviewers link improvements to recent management changes; others state conditions worsened after ownership or leadership turnover. Overall, families frequently cite poor communication — unreturned calls, difficulty reaching floor nurses, and insufficient updates.
Environment, maintenance, and facilities: Some reviewers describe the physical environment positively — clean, pleasant-smelling, well-maintained wings with good dining rooms and large studios. However, many other reviews point to serious maintenance problems: broken elevators, mold, stained walls and carpets, parking lot disrepair, and decrepit furnishings. These differences suggest variation by wing/floor and that parts of the building may be well-kept while others are neglected.
Activities and social life: The facility’s activities and social programming receive consistently positive mention from many reviewers: bingo, holiday events, and regular gatherings that help residents socialize and enjoy communal life. Families noted residents making friends and benefiting from a meaningful activities schedule and memory programming in some cases.
Patterns and likely drivers: The dominant pattern is variability in resident experience driven by staffing levels, shift-to-shift performance, and management oversight. Positive reports focus on dedicated frontline caregivers and therapy staff who compensate for systemic shortcomings. Negative reports cluster around clinical failures, sanitation and pest-control issues, administrative problems, and staffing shortages. Repeated allegations about pest infestation, medication errors, call-light response failure, and theft are among the most serious and recurring.
Implications for prospective families: Given the polarized reviews, prospective residents and families should exercise careful due diligence. Recommendations based on the reported issues include: visit multiple times at different hours (including evenings and weekends) to observe staffing and responsiveness; ask for written policies and logs on pest control, infection control, and medication administration; inquire about nurse-to-resident ratios and typical staffing for targeted units; request recent inspection and complaint histories from the state; verify how dietary restrictions and special diets are implemented; and ask for references from current families living on the specific unit of interest. When possible, clarify what private-room promises, transfer/eviction policies, and billing/charity-donation practices look like in writing.
Conclusion: Reviews indicate Buckeye Forest at Fairfield can provide excellent, compassionate care for some residents, particularly where skilled therapists, engaged aides, and responsive nursing leadership are present. However, the facility also has numerous, recurring serious concerns reported by multiple families — notably pest infestation, medication and clinical safety lapses, poor housekeeping, staff unresponsiveness, and administrative/communication failures. The overall picture is one of significant variability: strong pockets of quality exist alongside repeated reports of unsafe and unsanitary conditions. A cautious, investigative approach is warranted for anyone considering this facility, with particular attention to unit-specific performance, recent management changes, and objective regulatory records.
