I have been meaning to write a review for La Mirage for a while now. My husband is active duty in the Navy, so we are bouncing around to new apartments with each new duty station, and we always like to read the reviews to where we are going to live next. Sometimes the reviews can be out right scary with the stuff some people write. It's always nice when you finally come across some calm, rational review where the person who's writing it just doesn't sound crazy.
Sometimes when I read the reviews I wish I could know the person's dynamic a bit better, like if they were a college student who partied all weekend long, or if they were a family with children. So here's my review...
My family consists of me, my husband and our 1 year old little boy. My husband and I would consider ourselves a young couple starting their family. We had no pets and we are non smokers.
Like I said, we had no pets while we lived at La Mirage, but I did have friends who lived a few doors down at the time, and they had cats and even some medium sized dogs. The complex and grounds are very pet friendly and we wouldn't hesitate in becoming pet owners while living there. The grounds for pets are awesome because the La Mirage complex is huge and literally sits on this big hill overlooking mission valley and the charger stadium. Around the complete perimeter of the property there is a nature/walking path. It's really great. My husband and I would just enjoy taking the baby for walk in the evenings around the whole property. Really great perk!
The Amenities of La Mirage I think are truly awesome. No joke it makes you feel like you living at a resort. They have pools, tennis courts, volley ball, basketball courts, and gym. The only thing missing in my opinion is a children’s playground. I hope that can be in the works for them in the future because there are many families with children living at La Mirage. The pools... there is one huge main one by the clubhouse. This pool is like a hotel pool. It's big, beautiful, different depths, it fans out. There are also three Jacuzzis at this pool. It's beautiful, check out the websites pictures. Then scattered across the property are 3 other good sized regular pools with Jacuzzis. We were just in pool heaven living here. If we saw one pool was a bit more crowded then my husband and I would simply take the baby to the next pool. I don't play tennis or volleyball, but I am a 25 year old mom who loves going to the gym. So my favorite was the gym there. The pics on the website in my opinion don't do it justice to how nice and spacious it is. They have tons of cardio machines, separate weight lifting area where all the men are of course. They have a dance studio where you can take free yoga classes. It's quite nice! They have a sauna I believe in the locker room for the ladies, showers. I have my own personal gym that is not one of those gross tiny little gyms like most apartments have. Awesome gym!
During our time living at la mirage my husband and I had a one bedroom. Our little boy was still pretty new so we didn't feel we needed a 2 bedroom yet. We lived in one of the bigger buildings in sunset village, on the third floor out of four levels. Maybe we just got lucky but we literally never had any appliances break or having any maintence issues. We had our washer/dryer in the unit. It was one of those ones that sat on top of one another. Worked well. We had a fireplace which is such a nice bonus to apartment living. Makes it feel so much cozier! Our balcony had a large storage closet for our surfboards, bikes, holiday storage bins. It's a good space. We made it work. Overall it was a good apartment. We didn't have one of the new remolded kitchens at the time, but I know they were going to remodel ours once we left. I'm sure it would have been even better having a remodeled kitchen. Still though, ours was in great working condition. We had new carpets in our unit and new paint.
NOISE... A given in any apartment complex you live in. I do not think its true how many people say La Mirage is the "party" place to live. That's not true. That's anywhere you live. Yes, I'm sure some of the past tenants got really unlucky with where their unit was placed. Sometimes you get bad neighbors, but that's just a gamble anyone takes with picking an apartment. Like I said earlier, we lived on the third floor while there were four levels. Yes, I could here (I think large stature people) walking above us (sometimes). Was it really a bother... no. My recommendation would be just pick a unit on the top floor. Then you'll have a great view and nobody above you. I always like being in the high buildings anyways, so that's what I would do next time. Three different times I could hear partying from a neighboring apartment. I think it was even across the way in another building from ours. This aggravates me when it's a week night and those kind of people who are just rude to everyone around them. They are in every community. All I did was call the number La Mirage gave me for their night security. They are awesome. I'd give them a ring sometimes even at midnight and they said they would go check out where the noise was coming from and try and take care of it for us. They were always helpful to me. Again I only had to call maybe 3 different occasions.
Most of the time it was quiet and my family and I enjoyed many nice evening dinners out on our balcony with no disturbances from people around us.
Parking...we got one assigned parking spot. My husband and I have two cars. A Large SUV and a Sedan. Here's the trick. Whoever would get home first from the day whether it is my husband or I would park on the Street. The street parking was very close to our elevator anyway. So whoever would get home first would park on the st that way the other who came home later for work would have our garage spot already for them. Parking does fill up in the evenings, but there is always a way to figure it out. I do remember hearing about there being car break ins in the garage during the time I was living there, but never had an issue myself. My garage parking spot had nice car neighbors, thankfully. My husband and I made it work just fine.
I grew up in San Diego my whole life, so I am very familiar with all the neighborhoods and areas. This location of La Mirage is just perfect. I love it! You are sitting on this big beautiful hill overlooking mission valley, and the Charger Stadium. You have Mission Valley Mall and Fashion Valley mall right down the road. Ikea, movie theaters, restaurants. Mission Beach is 15 min down interstate 8. Some people say living by the charger stadium is bad during the season. Trust me, it's not. There are 4+ lanes and the stadium parking staff directs the cars to the turn lanes so we were never caught up in traffic getting to or from home at La Mirage. La Mirage also sits above interstate 15 on one side. When we use to walk the nature path alongside that side, yes the freeway was hearable but not a problem we would think twice about. It's really awesome when you take a walk in the evening and you can see all the city lights. Even the car freeway lights aren’t too bad to look at.
Gosh I can't believe I wrote this much already... but hey that is what we experienced as a family living here.
Oh a couple more things! One thing that my husband and I liked was we paid our rent online every month at their website. I am all about online bill pay so this was a great feature to have. They never once messed up our bill. Also! They had this refer a friend and get $100 off our rent. We did refer and friend that led to them moving in and sure enough they were true to their word and we got $100 taken off.
Wrapping it up now, we really had a good living experience there. The pools, gym, grounds, buildings, views, were all just beautiful. The apartments were new and updated. Location can't get any better (except at the beach of course) ;)
The only thing that would come to mind if we were to move back to La Mirage would be to pic an apartment on the top floor so I could avoid any noise above me.
I hope my review helps others who are looking into La Mirage for their future home. We had a good experience living there as a newlywed husband and wife and also when we brought home our first baby. My husband and I enjoyed living there very much.
Subscribe to La Mirage RSS Feed
