I am the the person that posted the "Comment from 6 year resident" about a year ago. I am thankful to say that I finally got out of that Hell's Gardens in September 2008. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this place to my worst enemey, seriously people. However, if you are looking at this place as your potential new home let me address each topic breifly.

Parking:

Parking is one of the better amenities here. There is usually enough parking, provided you have a resident sticker. Parking can be a bit of a problem for people that come over to visit. They would have to park on the street and it's very hard to find parking on the street after 10pm or so.

Noise:

I have never lived in an apartment with walls as thin as the walls at University Gardens. You can hear every foot step from your neighbor above you. It doesn't help that the majority of the people in that complex are ignorant, so they're going to let their kids run all day long above your head and play their music as loud as the volume goes with no regard for their neighbors or of the time that they're playing their music. I've heard loud music as early as 6am and as late as 3am. My last neighbors kids would wake up at 5:30am and run until 9:30pm (not joking).

Grounds:

The grounds are nothing to write home about, but they keep them pretty clean considering the neighborhood and the amount of traffic that comes through the complex.

Safety:

The lighting is not the best considering how bad the neighborhood is. They need to put up more street lamps for lighting. They claim to have security, but the only thing I see them do is drive up and down Riggs Rd. & Univ. Blvd pretending to be PG County police. I've seen them once patroling the entire time I lived there. I also saw a man robbed right in front of my apartment when night around 10pm. In addition, cars have been broken in to on numerous occassions as well. I also had someone try to break into my apartment once while I was home.

Construction:

Everything is cheap and old in these apartments. The fixtures are old and tacky, the sound and heat insulation sucks. You can feel so much cold air coming through the windows in the winter time that I had to get maintenance to put plastic over the windows. It didn't help much though, because my heat (gas) bill was stil averaging $250 a month. Yes, $250 a month on average for a 650 square foot 2 bedroom apartment. The layout and design is small and tacky with very little closet space. They are updating the kitchens with light wood cabinets and mini white stoves (they don't have normal size stoves in these apartments) once old tenants like myself move out.

Maintenance:

Maintenance is probably the other half way decent service they offer at Univ. Gardens. For the most part, they've always addressed my needs within 24 hours. My past issues with maintenance usually occurs when I've had to call them after hours, which is when they give horrible service. I've had no heat and no toilet and have had nobody show up until the next business day after I've paged them all night. However, if you have a daytime concern it's usually handled pretty efficiently.

Staff:

The staff doesn't even know the meaning of the word professional, they are very rude and not helpful at all. If you call them with an issue they will treat you as if you are lying. And corporate headquarters in Fairfax is just as bad. I've had to call out there for concerns of mine that weren't being addressed properly, only to receive the same rude behavior from the people at the corporate office.

Overall:

Overall, I would not recommend this place to anyone. There is roach and bed bug infestation in a large percentage of the aparment buildings. The apartments are very small and you can hear everything that your neighbors are doing. The schools are not the best and the area in general is not a safe neighborhood. You can find better out here than Univ. Gardens.

User Responses
From: desktopia	Date: 08/17/2007
I lost all my furniture to bedbugs at U Gardens as well. It's disgusting that they say they're not responsible for this, since it's obviously their problem and their fault. They're not willing to tent entire buildings and kill them all, so even when they kill them temporarily in your apt, they're just hiding in the next one.
From: tharmony23	Date: 08/28/2007
omg!!!! when I moved here april 5, 2007 it was actually a last resort I rather be on the streets the bed bugs r so bad my kids and I have marks and welts all over aor legs and arms and I am expecting a baby in October I plan on calling the health department in the morning
From: mishling2	Date: 10/05/2007
To: sexyphlegm: You are so right about the bed bugs. I wrote my first review in August and guess what, just this week (less than 2 months later), the bed bugs were on my living room couch!!! I lost my entire living room set. I have nothing left. I am in the process of looking for a new place now. I just can't take it anymore!!
From: sexyphlegm	Date: 10/13/2007
To Mishling2: I am so sorry that it happened to you as well. :( Try to spread the word about apartmentratings.com -- it may be the only way we can try to warn people from moving to University Gardens. I hope you find a better place. There's a place in Greenbelt with the name tower in it (it's about a mile from the Target if I remember correctly). My husband says it's called Westchester Park--I found it on here and it's called Towers of Westchester Park. We took a tour of this building back in January 2001, and I wish we had moved there instead of University Gardens. At the time, it was around $900 a month. But I see now rent is about $1219. So the cost may be prohibitive. Another suggestion may be Wynfield Park--it's managed by Metric Properties, and I'm living in a building managed by Metric Properties right now in California and I think they're wonderful. They have a policy that if you don't like where you live, you can break your lease and get all of your rent back within the first 30 days. Also, maintenance, if you call in a repair and it's not fixed within 48 hours, they refund pro-rated rent for every day that the repair isn't made. Hopefully you get this notice in time...
From: Anonymous	Date: 10/17/2009
First, why the hell would you stay at a place for 6 years if it was this bad? My guess, your credit sucks, and you probably pay your rent late in either case you probably deserve to live at a place like University Gardens. Second, why would you stay in front of whereever you live watching someone get robbed. Do you get your rocks from watching something like that... try calling 911 because that same thing could happen to you and if the witnessess get the same impression that i do off you, nobody would bother to help you.

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