I lived there for three years from 2004 - 2007 and loved it. I lived in a two bedroom with a balcony and walk-in closet. Rent was pretty good. The complex is really close to campus, so I was able to walk to classes. It was right on the bus route, which made it nice for people without cars or those who wanted to save gas. It was also pretty quiet for the most part. The rooms are spacious and the walk-in closet was big enough to be a tiny bedroom itself I actually used it as such my first year there. The other closets were kind of clunky because they were metal, but a little WD-40 fixed that up. The bathroom was huge and had a large mirror which was great for a bunch of girls getting ready to go clubbing. The kitchen was kind of dated with 70 s styled cupboards, but that wasn t a big deal because we were all fairly artsy and decorated so that you couldn t really tell.

The people who worked in the leasing office were always friendly and fairly quick to respond to any problems. The maintenance people are nice enough, but they left me less than satisfied. In the three years I lived there, I had only 5 occasions where I had to call maintenance. The first was when the a/c in my bedroom sprung a leak. Maintenance came to fix it fairly quickly, but they didn t replace the carpet which was obviously ruined. Strategic placement of furniture was what I used to hide the stain. I called on 2 occasions for plumbing. One where I needed my bathtub drain snaked because it was clogged, and the other where I needed my kitchen pipes replaced because they were leaking. On both occasions, the maintenance guys left a fairly unpleasant mess and no effort was made to replace the water damaged parts under my sink. The last occasion was also plumbing, but it was because my upstairs neighbor s bathtub leaked and it was so terrible that it started to peel large chunks of paint off my ceiling and wall above my bathtub. Maintenance fixed the leak, but once again, no effort was made to repair the damage and the ceiling looked terrible for the duration of my stay.

There s a laundry and storage room in each building which is nice, but it s $1.50 to wash and $1.75 to dry. I typically had to run my clothes through the dryer twice because they never got dry enough on the first run.

The community itself was nice. I had a balcony that faced the sunset and we had some beautiful trees around our building. It was really nice to sit out on the deck on a summer evening and watch the sun set or on a summer day and see all the people enjoying the pool.

Parking was never a big issue, but if you have guests, make sure they know to park in the guest lot, on the street, or somewhere nearby. If they don t have a tag and are not in the designated guest parking, they ll get towed. I had two or three friends have that happen. Also, there were only 10 guest spaces for my whole half of the complex, so it became an issue when the weekend rolled around and everyone had friends overnight.

I loved it in River Drive, but I think I left at a good time. When Spring 2007 came around and the new tenants started moving in, there were a lot more shady people hanging around the parking lots late at night. There was more noise, and the cops came on at least four separate occasions. Tenants change, however, so I wouldn t keep that too close in mind or hold it against the complex.

I recommend this place to any college student or twenty-something looking for a nice community with reasonable rent. If you re older, however, you may want to look someplace else.

User Responses
From: megslade1	Date: 08/20/2009
This was very similar to my experience. It's an older complex, but the staff is good. Some unusual people started moving in 'round the time I left. If I ever had to move back to Ypsilanti, I would definitely check out River Drive again.

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