My husband and I moved into archstone about a year ago and had nothing but problems. After speaking with other residents, our building was worse than some of the others, but they still had complaints as well. Our building was awfully noisy. There were people partying ALL the time and when they weren't partying, they were fighting and if you lived in the inside part of the "U" shape all the buildings had, was extremely noisy-- especially when it's 2am and the neighbors are pounding on the house and garage doors and screaming at their roomates, who aren't home to let them in because they forgot their keys.

Parking wasn't bad during the day, but parking anywhere near your apartment in the evening or night was a nightmare. There are spots for guests, but those are usually full because residents park there.

DO NOT walk in the grass! (if you live on the pet side) there are dog logs all over the place because no one picks up after their pets!!! (my dog wouldn't even walk on the grass because it was so disgusting) There were usually dog logs on the street too and too often you'd see smears from people on their way to work who'd step on the dog mess. Be careful if you're on the non-pet side also because that side DOES have dogs on it and I would bet they don't pick up after their dogs either.

The lighting in the stairways and whatnot wasn't bad, but from one building to the next the lighting was HORRIBLE. In the last 6 months we lived there 2 peeping tom's were caught.

The construction of these apartments is a joke. They use the cheapest materials they can find. The cord from my hairdryer caught the bathroom cabinet and tore off a huge chunk of the plastic veneer. The carpeting attracts stains like crazy!!! We took our shoes off at the door and still managed to get black stuff all over the carpet! Spot treating took it out, but within a week the place was filthy again. In the new place we're staying we wear our shoes in the house and no problems with black stains on the rug.

The gates at this complex are ALWAYS broken. You don't even need the fob they give you! They may come and fix it, but within a week it's usually broken again (partly because residents loose their fob so they push the gate open with their bumpers which breaks the gate). The ped. gates are also usually broken because people kick them in and it takes FOREVER to get them repaired and when they are repaired, are repaired incorrectly.

When we had our pre-inspection for moving out the woman pushed us to have their people clean the place- NOT because the place was filthy, but because of the ridiculous guidelines you have to follow to clean the place. It wasn't even worth trying to clean the apartment on moving out! Then they billed us for more random water charges of approx. 3$ or so each. The last h20 bill we recieved was almost full price when we didn't even use water the entire last month of our lease because we lived in a different house!!!

Overall, the apartment doesn't compensate for the price. I don't get what the big deal is with the location of mission valley. What are you close to''' There isn't anything really that great in the area. if you want to live somewhere cool for your money live downtown or on the beach-- it's almost the same price! to renew our lease on our tiny one bedroom they wanted 1500/mo.!!!!! the other bad thing about this complex is its proximity to qualcomm. if there is an event going on, forget getting home within a reasonable amount of time. There are some back roads you can take to get home, but there is still usually a wait to get to your apt.

anyway, hope this helps future renters.

User Responses
From: patbrady	Date: 09/21/2007
I lived there too and I agree with EVERYTHING you said. When we told the woman we weren't renewing our lease she basically said that there was no way we'd see our security. She told me that if they have to clean ANYTHING, even behind/under the refrigerator they'd charge us for a FULL cleaning. She was true to her word too. I left that place SPOTLESS and they still charged me for a full cleaning, steam cleaning the carpets and a FULL paint job of the apartment even though we had only been there for 3 months.
From: Anonymous	Date: 02/11/2008
Thanks for all the input everyone's put in to this apartment complex. I'll be sure not to rent from them!!

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