Apartment Review for The Monterey

#1: If you're going to rent from this place, make sure that you get to go in the apartment you'll actually be renting. They're not all the same. They'll show you a nice one and you'll end up with one with appliances that are circa 1982.

#2: Check the appliances. You'll probably find that the "new" water heaters have an energy star rating at the far end of the efficiency scale which means that it'll take all day for your water to heat up again after you wash dishes. Check to make sure that the refrigerator can keep your milk from spoiling. If it looks like it's from the late 70s/early 80s it probably is. Check the gasket on the range. It probably lets the range heat the kitchen better than your food. If you have a single basin sink they probably haven't updated the kitchen since it was built 30 years ago.

#3: Check the heater. You probably have one of the least efficient heat pumps ever created. They're designed for southern climates in well-insulated buildings that don't have 1,000+ square feet to heat. Oh, and it would help if they insulated the closet or ever bothered to properly fasten ducting. Plan on buying some electric heaters. They're far more efficient than the heat pumps in any of the apartments. You'll still have a well-over-$200/month electric bill if you attempt to keep your apartment above 63°. It can't even make it to 68° in the winter so forget about it. Plan on crying when the electric bill comes even if you tried to conserve electricity.

#4: Check for water damage. The roof leaks in most buildings so keep an eye out if you plan to live on the second floor. If you happen to tour several second floor apartments watch the periphery

#5: Underground parking. It's actually quite a wonderful thing. However, an extended cab short box fullsize cab is at the limits of what the building can accept. When it rains your car is better off outside since the water follows the compressed-span concrete and drops down on your car. It'll be full of minerals that make divots in your paint. If you happen to have a normal job (meaning you start work at around 8am) forget about getting out of the underground parking in the morning. By the time the "maintenance" people haul themselves out of bed to salt and the plow operators bother to wake up in the morning you should have been to work for an hour.

#6: Prepare yourself for your privacy to be invaded multiple times without reason or cause. If they give you a notice that they will doing their "semi-annual HVAC maintenence" you can try to schedule a time for them to come when you are home but they won't let you. They will tell you that they don't know when the "maintenence" people are coming. Also, if they say that Time Warner is coming to update the cable in your apartment, don't expect them to be accompanied by an apartment person. Nope, apparently independent contractors get free reign of people's apartments! Also, even if they say they are going to replace your furnace filter during this "neccesary maintenence," if you watch them on a web cam you will only see them open the closet door, look at your filter, and close it again. They aren't acutally going to replace it, unforunately.

#7: Make sure you don't mind spontaneous changes for the worse. You may receive a notification that TODAY at 3:00pm your parking spot has been reassigned. You will not receive any future notice of this event, and you probably will have had the parking spot for the last year since you moved in. And, even though the notice took effect at 3:00pm, you didn't get the notice until 5:30pm when you got back from work because you, like most other people, work all day. If this occurs they will also warn you that you need to get a new parking sticker immediately, but when you go to get it (even though it's before 6:00pm when they close!) no one is there, per the usual. Which brings me to #8...

#8: Make sure that if someone sends you a package you don't count on receiving it until Saturday no matter what day it acutally gets there. Even though the hours of the Office are 9:00am to 6:00pm (formerly 8:00am to 6:00pm but they must have deemed that excessive so they scaled back an hour... not that they were ever there at 8:00am anyway, more like 8:30), they are very rarely there until 6:00pm. The day we got the parking notice, I saw one of the office workers driving away at around 5:30pm. You'd think they'd actually stay until their supposed closing time since everyone was supposed to get new parking stickers but no such luck. Also, they consistently are not there until 6:00pm which is why you won't see your package until Saturday unless you make it a point to leave work early for the sole purpose of retreiving your package.