I just found out my roommate has seen a guy regularly selling drugs right outside at night. It just adds to the long list of bad things about this place. It looks nice when you tour, but it's not worth the price. There are a lot cheaper places in the area and you won't have to worry about nightmare management.
I read the bad reviews on other sites and decided to take my chances anyway, because of the large layout and fairly low rent. I learned that "you get what you pay for" is true.
The worst problem we've had is our sink. It backs up at least once a day, usually when the people upstairs use their sink, dishwasher, or garbage disposal. The smell is disgustingly AWEFUL, and it fills the whole apartment. I can't even think of words to describe how bad it is. We've called twice to get it taken care of, but it's still doing it. The 2nd time, the maintenance person didn't seem to know what a sink backing up meant.
Some of the reviews said to come at night and see that the place is crawling with cockroaches. I did just that, but didn't see any. The first night we moved in however, we had to kill a huge one at least an inch long that was on the ceiling. I was afraid of what I'd gotten myself into. Though they must be here somewhere, luckily I haven't seen any cockroaches since then.
I have occasionally seen a few random large (1" or bigger) bugs that I couldn't identify. If I were afraid of bugs,
Ants are another matter. We've had 2-3 ant invasions in the 6 months we've been here. They came in from the ceiling and infested our food cabinets.
Another thing is the parking. It's HORRIBLE. When I came to check the place out, it was about 6pm or so, and I saw quite a few open parking spaces on the street. It must have been a fluke, because there's almost never parking within 3 blocks. So if you have guests come, they won't have anywhere to park, unless they're only staying 2 hours. Then they can use the parking lot at the park. If they stay longer, they can risk getting a ticket or towed.
If you have a 3 bedroom, you get 2 parking spaces assigned. If you have a 2 bedroom, you get one assigned space and I believe one pass for the open spots. The open spots are NEVER open. In the time I've been here, I've probably seen one open at most 3 times. You'll end up parking on the street. If you're lucky, you'll be able to park less than 3 blocks away.
There are quite a few washers and driers, but one of the driers on our floor is continually broken.
For some reason, they've become Nazi's about what can and can't be on people's patios. To an extent, I can see their point not wanting unsightly items making the place look bad. But their standards for unsightly are way beyond reasonable. They've actually walked around to everyone's patio, peered over the edge and told people to remove anything they don't like. We have a simple folding buffet table (google it if you don't know what a buffet table is) that we use for setting the food on to BBQ. They've told us to get rid of that because they don't consider it patio furniture. But without peering over the edge, they wouldn't know what kind of table it was. You can barely even see it from outside.
And if you want to have a pair of shoes next to the door that you can slip on when you go onto the patio and take back off when you walk inside (like a lot of people do), forget it. You're not allowed to have any shoes sitting on the patio.
Also, you can't keep a broom on the patio, even if you can't see that without stopping and peering over the edge either. It's really filthy to bring a broom inside to store it after it's been sweeping up all the dirt and potting soil on a patio, but that's what they expect you to do.
Before we moved in, I asked them if they had any ridiculous rules about what we can and can't have. They said that as long as the patios looked nice and we didn't do something like bring out living room furniture or use it for storage, that it was ok. Now I feel like I was lied to.
Feel free to see how "unsightly" my patio is in photos here: http://s284.photobucket.com/albums/ll10/galleryapt/ (copy and paste into your address bar)
When I read the bad reviews about the management, I figured the reviewers might just have attitude problems or be jerks or something. Well, I definitely see what they were talking about.
The management doesn't seem to have respect for their tenants, who they seem to forget are their customers. I'm a working professional, but I feel like they treat everyone as though they're a bunch of college students that have to do whatever they say because they say so. The manager had the nerve to say to me "Don't argue with me." in a tone that sounded like I was child disagreeing with their parent. That's not the way you talk to a customer. I won't be renewing my lease, and I just hope that they don't start acting worse after reading this review, because I'm pretty sure they won't have to think too hard to figure out who I am.
One additional thing is that isn't too bad, but annoys me a little is that in my bedroom I always hear the water from the upstairs neighbor's toilet flushing. It's pretty loud too.
Also, the countertops are really cheap. They stain easily. My makeup has stained the bathroom counter. I've gotten makeup on plenty of other counters and it's never once stained one before. It just wipes right off. That means that the cost of replacing them will probably be coming out of your security deposit, since stained countertops are not considered normal wear and tear.
CHECK YOUR CELL PHONE RECEPTION!! I have Sprint and the reception is not good. My blackberry has AT&T and the reception is even worse. Sometimes there's none at all. Check your reception in the apartment before you rent it.
On the positive side, the ladies working in the office are very friendly and helpful. A few times I've been so busy that I didn't realize it was the beginning of the month, and they gave me a call to remind me on the 4th. That was very nice, and I've never had an apartment do that. Too bad for all that other negative stuff.