I was not planning to write a review of this property before the move-out inspection but the latter changed my mind. I rented 5 apartments before Knighridge and all of them were OK, but as the heading says, we ve had a mixed-bag experience living in Knightridge. I will go through both positive and negative things, but, in any case, everything here mostly pertains to the apartment we leased. Other apartments may well be different.

Pros:
1) Far from downtown, and by this, I mean Knightridge is a very quiet place.

2) At the same time it is close to College Mall and other shopping centers.

3) Excellent maintenance. Staff is very friendly and responsive. Management is ok, too.

4) Online rent payment option and online maintenance requests.

5) On-site swimming pool and club house.

6) Our unit was relatively reasonably priced but (see below).

Cons:
1) Far from campus. If you don t have a car, you ll have a hard time getting around. There is #6 bus that goes to Knightridge but, in the summer, it runs every hour. There is also #3 bus that goes to Bradford Place but it is a 10-minute walk to the stop and there is no paved path to there.

2) The only laundry room has only 5 dryers and 5 washers and 1 or 2 of them are constantly out of order and some dryers do not work properly. Sometimes, the only time to do your laundry is very late at night when there are fewer people trying to use it. Moreover, dryers and washers are not cleaned often and there is always animal fur in them.

3) Although there is a pet restriction, many residents have dogs and cats. This is not a bad thing if you don t walk on the lawn and step on a dog poo or have fur in your laundry.

4) The office is located far on the south side of Bloomington, which is sometimes very inconvenient.

5) Our unit and everything in it was very old. Here is the biggest problem we had with our apartment. Because the water heater and the pipes are very old, there was a leak in the pipe under the unit and all our hot water went underground. We could barely take a shower because hot water lasted only 2-3 minutes and, because of the leak, our monthly electricity bill was around $230 in the summer and $290 in the winter (at 6.5 cents per kWh). It took the management almost 7 months to figure out what the problem was and the water heater was replaced and the leak was fixed. For you to see how much we overpaid, our electricity bill went down to $120 in the winter and $65 in the summer (now at 9.8 cents per kWh). We were, however, reimbursed by the office, but it was hardly a half of what we used to overpay.

7) Back to the move-out inspection that made me frustrated and forced me to write this review. Please, be advised to note every minor problem, scuff, etc. when you move-in. When we moved in, the apartment was in a terrible condition. Bathrooms, toilets, refrigerator were dirty, kitchen cabinets were filled with mouse excrements, there were scuffs on the walls. I and my wife spent the whole day yesterday cleaning the apartment and simply made it shine. So what do you think happened' The lady from the office noticed a few scuffs (although there were already some when we moved in) that anybody would consider as reasonable wear and tear and said that my security deposit may be reduced by the amount necessary to do professional painting. Moreover, $70 is deducted from your security deposit in any case for carpet cleaning regardless of how clean your carpet is. To cut it short, I do not expect much of my security deposit back, although I consider it to be unfair on the part of management, since we got the apartment in a much much worse condition than when we were moving out. To back up my words, I can provide anyone with the move-out/move-in form where you can see all the problems listed under move-in list and almost all OKs under move-out.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/06/2008
Just wanted to note on the pet restriction under item 3 of Cons. Both dogs and cats are allowed at Knightridge. You have to pay to have them of course - X amount per month. I can't remember - it was just added on to my monthly bill. It's a little ridiculous, especially because you have to put a deposit down also and you don't get it back. The dogs do poop all over the lawn, so watch out for the mine fields. Also, animals have to weigh below a certain weight.

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