Rancho Las Palmas was my first apartment living experience, and I have to say it was really a pleasant time. Atmosphere and tenants really make your living experience good or bad and everyone we came into contact with was nice and the management was friendly. The Jupiter runs close to the apartment so if you're going to ASU it's very convenient. The complex borders a park and is great if you have a dog or like to play basketball/soccer. Good place to live whether you're a student or not.

Management:
The management was always nice to me, Scott is the manager and learned my name, my girlfriends name, and even my dogs name within a couple meetings. You have a 2day (sometime 3day if on a sunday) period to pay your rent before its late and the one time I was late they were cool about it. Only had 1 package, but they took it for me no problem. The leasing girl is very pleasant and very polite as well as the manager Scott.

Grounds:
The grounds were the best I saw when looking for apartments very close to ASU. The grass is very green and looks very good overall. Only problem was around Christmas where there was about 2 weeks of tree branches all over, but I think that was the contracted tree trimmers fault not really the management. Groundskeepers stop blowing when they see you and were courteous.

Tenants/Noise:
Train!! The stupid train comes anywhere from 2-4 times per day and can be really loud if you have your windows open. It bothers you less and less as time goes on but this complex is physically the closest you can be to the train tracks so it can be loud. Never any problems with people noise. Lived there for a year, all my surrounding neighbors were cool and quiet. There was a couple parties, but they were on the weekends and weren't really that disrupting. Walking the grounds, there was never loud music or idiots running crazy. Never had anything close to a problem with any of the tenants.
I would say the ethnic makeup of the tenants were close to this while I lived there:
White (40%)
Middle-eastern (27.5%)
Asian (22.5%)
Mexican/Black/Other (10%)
(I didn't know everyone but I walked my dog 3x per day so I saw a good percentage)

Parking:
Always plenty of uncovered parking, never had a problem getting a spot. Uncovered spots are spacious, but the covered spots are tighter.

Safety:
Probably the only really negative about this complex is your car getting broken in to. I was broken into once and had my stereo and subs stolen. I remembered one morning I was told four cars were broken into overnight and had their stereos stolen. They installed lights on the parking spaces but they were frequently out. If you have a car stereo, take your faceplate out or at least put it out of sight. As far as personal safety from walking the grounds, I never felt unsafe even at night and frequently saw others out walking their dogs or whatever around that time.

Apartment:
The apartment complex is pretty old and looks it. Most of the furnishings were done in the 80s and look that way. I had to get a new refrigerator because the freezer wasn't keeping temperature and my water heater blew up and ruined some boxes I had in my storage. I got the water heater the next day, and the fridge took about a week. My AC decided to leak one night, in which it was fixed the next morning.

Overall:
Even with the problems I had with my appliances and car getting broken into (could happen ANYWHERE in that part of town) I still had a really pleasant time living there. To me, it's more important to have nice grounds, respectful management, quick maintenance, and quality neighbors than having slightly larger floor plans or newer fixtures. Rent was on the increase, but still wasn't too bad by the time we moved out (I think it went up like 35$/yr). I'd recommend it as a place to live.

edit: Oh yeah, I cleaned my apartment very well except for a couple holes from hanging stuff (curtains etc) and I received my full deposit back (including pet deposit).

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