Not at all an exaggeration.
When we moved in there was a huge stain in one of the rooms, like a square foot black paint looking stain, and the carpet just needed to be replaced overall. The cabinet doors didn't fit, so the they wouldn't close completely.
The trains being coupled right outside our door (we were right up against the train tracks) were a little obnoxious in the beginning, but we got used to it.
The walls in the apartment are ridiculously thin. We could hear our upstair neighbors talking, just talking, all the time.
The heater and AC unit may as well have not been there, for all the good they did. They barely changed the temperature in the living room, let alone the rest of the apartment.
There was construction occurring on the apartment adjacent to mine for the majority of the time I was there. It was off and on in the beginning of the school year and the week before finals they started to work on the roof. They would begin construction at 7 in the morning, and it was not something you could sleep through. It was loud and shook the entire apartment. I went to the office and asked the managers if there was some way they could delay the start of the construction until at least 8AM. They reasoned that it needed to be done before the rain started (even though it had been raining earlier in the month.) We went back and forth on this for 10 minutes; me saying that they could just push it off for an hour a day, because after all their apartments do cater mainly to college who students who at that time were studying until early in the morning, and them saying they had the right so they'd do whatever they wanted.
That's just one example of the horrible managers they have. None of my neighbors I talked with had a good experience with them.
The thing that topped everything for me and my roommates though, was when we noticed the ceiling in our bathroom was caving in in one area. We checked it out and realized that there was water pooling up there and the only thing stopping it from collapsing on us was layers of paint. We discovered this at night, but we figured it qualified as an emergency, so we paged the managers. When they called us back 15 minutes later and we explained the situation and the manager, who sounded extremely annoyed at the idea of us having called her for something so insignificant, told us we'd just have to wait until the next day for maintenance to check it out. When maintenance came by the next day they told us that it was much more serious than the managers had made it out to be. They ended up having to take down the entire ceiling in our bathroom and redo it. The maintenance guys were really nice, and even though it was a hassle not having access to the bathroom and having 4 men walking in and out of house, the managers never once apologized for the inconvenience. Later, our upstairs neighbors informed us that the managers were attempting to charge them with the cost of the repairs because the leak that caused the situation originated in their apartment.
The managers were by far the worst aspect of the apartment, they were just unbelievably lazy and unwilling to do anything above bare minimum.
There were some nice aspects of Parkside, however. The fitness room was nice and very convenient. The laundry room was open 24/7 and there were always machines available.
I wouldn't live here again. I hated this place so much that I moved out early and sub-letted my room. The price is good for the spacious rooms you get, but everything else is very sub-par. Not worth it.

Your thoughts? Post a response to this review. Display my response: with my username anonymously Responses appear below reviews and one response per user is permitted.

   Free estimates on moving trucks      Find apartment share/roommates