Review for The Block Apartments

When I was writing The Block my final payment, I told a friend, "Living here sucks!"

The Block staff member (I will call her Jessica) said, "It wasn't that bad."

I said, "It wasn't that good."

She continued, "It could've been a lot worse!"

I easily retorted, "It could've been a lot better! Like the elevators could've worked during our move-out today."

"We're not the ones who break the elevators," Jessica said, clearly feeling as if she had won this argument.

"I know," I said, and repeated the phrase I had heard at least 50 times over the phone, "'The residents do.'"

She looked smugly at me as if me regurgitating this fictional bit of information proved her point. I continued with more of their propaganda by saying, "And 'only the elevator maintenance team can fix them.'"

So they are not responsible for the elevators breaking or getting fixed. Okay, tell that to the City of Austin, I dare you.


One poster wrote that the elevators only worked 4 days out of 10. This poster was being generous. Since The Block staff does not work weekends, the elevator breaking on a Friday at 6:01 meant you would be taking stairs from Floor 6 to P2 (8 floors) until Monday when you could call and speak with The Block and they could send someone over. You better hope that Monday is not a staff development day!

I thought nothing could surprise me, but when Jessica played a childish verbal game with me (which I admit, I too played along), she used the example of "It could've been worse." Yes, Jessica, it could've been worse...like I don't know, dead bodies in my closets? The place constantly on fire? Vomit outside my room in the hall for 5 days because that did not classify as a cleaning emergency? (Okay, that last one actually happened).

My car got towed out of its parking spot with the correct tag in the correct spot. The Block called for my car to be towed and the towing company scratched my car in 4 spots. Fortunately, the towing company takes pictures of the car before it gets towed, so after 3 hours of phone tag, photo evidence of my car in my spot with my tag were sent to The Block. My father (a lawyer) had to send a written statement demanding payment for the damages. To The Block's credit, they paid. I still had to deal with not having a car while the scratches were getting fixed and the bumper replaced.

I lived there for two years because move-in the first time was so bad that I wanted to postpone move-out as quickly as possible. You have to resign your lease the November after the August you move in or else they will give away your room. There was a small gap in the doors leading to the balcony outside. I asked for it to be fixed when we moved in August of 2007. As of July 2009, it had yet to be properly fixed (though they did send in people numerous times over two years to fix it). When it rained, I had to dry the floor with paper towels.

One of the posters said that The Block staff treats you like a third grader. Third graders are usually 8 or 9 years old. I loved third grade. If you want to give you a childish example (as these work best when dealing with The Block), the staff treats you with the same respect that Cinderella's step-sisters did in the Grimm's version, not Disney's. (Cody and Lynette, I'm talking about you!)

Often times, the students who live here want to take care of the problems on their won, but the issues of apartment contracts and what is within their rights is new to them and over their heads. Most every student at The Block is living there while they go to school. At one point, my mother felt that I should concentrate on school and she would take care of the problems with The Block. She spoke with Lynette, who told her that certain issues such as the A/C and Internet were being taken care of and she would call her back. She never called back so my mom called her and she promised a return call and there was no call, etc. Now, if you are a mother reading this, you can understand how frustrating dealing with your child's apartment staff while you are in Houston or Dallas or however many miles away can be. But if you are a student, especially male, imagine the rage you feel when someone lies to your mom. That's all I need to say on that issue.

One time in December, my A/C was broken, so I called maintenance to come fix it. They came up and said everything was fine. I left for the 5 week holiday vacation. When I returned, the room was 104 degrees. I had to get out a separate digital thermometer, as the one on The Block's A/C only went up to 99 (which is what it read). All of the caulk was cracked. The water had evaporated from our toilets. I'm not ashamed to say that we had a couple of candles. They were melted, and ruined the tables on which they were resting. Our doors no longer locked.

I called emergency maintenance. While broken elevators are not an emergency, a hot room is. They came and said my A/C was broken. Astonished, I asked if he could fix it. The staff member found the broken piece and took another similar piece out of an unoccupied room and fixed the A/C. Took about 15 minutes. Imagine the breadth of A/C that was needed to cool that place down! Now imagine the bill. At least The Block (who I told the A/C was broken and they said that it wasn't) paid for the massively expensive A/C bill. HAHA. I'm kidding, of course they didn't. "We didn't tell you to run the A/C when your room was 104 degrees." Come to think of it, I guess they didn't!

You step back and realize that these are just people trying to make a living. They are also working at a business. With college kids, you will probably encounter some attitude. Do good businesses fight attitude with more attitude? No. Therefore, The Block is not a good business.

I admit to giving The Block straight 1 stars without reading the categories, but take for example safety. I only saw one homeless man enter the broken garage gates, and in the two years that I lived there, only about three times was anyone digging through the trash. So I'd probably give "Safety" a 3 stars. But "Office Staff" is -10 stars, so it takes away from all those other categories, unfortunately!