1. Parking - Assigned parking is provided but you could end up getting a tandem spot for a 2 bedroom unit. We were fortunate to have a 2 bedroom unit and 2 side by side parking spaces. We only had 1 car so the other space was great to have for guest since visitor parking was limited because of some people having so many cars. Neighboring tenants are not respectful to the assigned spaces and would park in no parking zones and in our 2nd space. We would always call the car in to be towed but the management never really enforced their policy. It took over 2 years for the person parking in our 2nd space to realize we were serious. There were occasions when we did use the space for our own personal use. Usually the warning note the management put on their car would find its way stuck to our car with pleasant note on it that can't be repeated here.
2. Noise - A lot of it. Seems tenants work some different hours than I because on days I stayed home sick people would be blasting their music. It was also like that after "quiet hours", too. We would call it in but the response time was slow and the responder on the phone was discourteous.
3. Grounds - They attempt to upkeep the appearance and landscaping all year round. I feel this is most of rent money goes to. The continue to plant and replant, sod and re-sod the grounds all the time. This last year was a severe drought in Oakland and Berkeley, to where water restrictions were made, voluntarily. Since the complex wasn't required to minimize their irrigation, they continued irrigating the grounds as they normally do, watering areas that didn't require being watered, sidewalks for example and broken irrigation heads. We had a dog and were always responsible in curbing our dog, however, other tenants weren't and I would occasionally step in some but soon learned to watch where I was walking even on sidewalks.
4.Safety - Sidewalks were slippery when wet because of the irrigation control. The lighting was OK just poorly utilized. The security guard seemed to be on a personal call every time I passed him.
5. Construction - CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP. From the light fixtures to the knock down painting. I am in the Building Industry so I have an understanding of materials, so here is a little list of things, just to begin, that are cheap: carpet, linoleum, kitchen & bathroom cabinets, dishwasher, range, kitchen faucet, bathroom tubs, insulation, light fixtures, fan coil unit, windows, paint finish. Carpet looked completely worn just after 1 year and weekly cleaning. By the time we moved out we were charged for replacing the carpet and we even had it shampooed during our stay. Kitchen faucet always leaked a little water every time it was turned on. Our place shook, not from earthquakes, but from our neighbors fan coil unit operating. The oven in our range didn't heat to the temperature it was set to so we had a temperature gauge in it. It was off by over a 100 degrees. We could feel a draft in the kitchen cabinets on a shared wall of another apartment and could also smell odors too. It seemed many of the tenants smoked, mostly marijuana, we would get a big whif of that not only from our cabinets but out on the decks, walking around outside.
6. Maintenance - When we ran the air conditioning our fan coil unit would generate condensation that condensation would then leak down from the ceiling and onto our carpet, thus staining our carpet and probably generated a lot of mold. Reported many times but never successfully repaired. A lot of water damage resulted from the construction and waterproofing of the bathroom tub, trim and floor. Again, never successfully repaired. We developed a rodent problem and had rats on our balcony for over a month. It didn't get resolved as soon as we would have liked and took matters into our own hands to remediate the situation.
7. Staff - Never very helpful, completely unprofessional.
8. Overall - Happy we are out but wish the circumstances had been different so we could have been out there sooner.

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