Richardson Place

Richardson Place "The good, the bad, the ugly"....

From: mystique61
Date posted: 10/1/2008
Years at this apartment: 2008-01-01 - 2008-01-01
3 responses

I really liked the woman that showed the apartment. It says to not say names but she is the one that is perky and nice and shows and sells the idea of renting at the apartment complex. I honestly don't know the managers name and I have talked to her once or twice. She is not so sympathetic or helpful (or she at least appears that way), who knows maybe it is a manager thing.
Good: I had the opportunity to stay in one of the so called modernized apartments. Plus I lived on the 1st level. The apartments modernized part was supposedly new stove, microwave and refrigerator. The refrigerator was aluminum front(I am sure it was probably new for the person before me,because there were scratches on the outside, but it was still in great condition. The stovetop was black glass with built in burners. It was clean, but again not brand new because it was used before (there were crumbs in crevice of stovetop and scratches, but it was clean oven. The microwave was black color and too had scratches from earlier use. It was clean too.
The carpet was in great condition and looked new. The walls were freshly painted. The blinds were cool wooden blinds that looked good.
Bad: Unfortunately during the showing of the apartment the lighting was low except she opened the blinds in the kitchen and frontroom to really let you notice the newish things. When I moved in I was given a form to fill out. It was an inspection of the apartment. I filled that paper out and used another form to mark down the mainly bad things I found. I found: window ledges had parts broke or chipped off, screens (about 3 of the 5)with holes or a small tear, paint drippings on bathroom and kitchen floors and some on doors, one window had a coating of something that didn't wash off so no clear view, the living room window would have been great to lift up blinds except you face opposite apartment, plus the traffic of people going back and forth prevented any privacy so the window was never really utilized,one of the kitchen windows had same disadvantage (plus unless you didn't care about the noise of others or them hearing what you were doing then you didn't open the window for fresh air),upon closing closet doors I found holes and several beat up parts (they did slide ok), there were lots of little chips,and scratches on trim.
Ugly: This is the part that I can't believe was unseen but as I look back my attention was pulled to the giant mirror and of course felt no need to use facility so did not go past a look in at it. The stuff in the utilities in the bathroom were as old as the apartment complex and well used, tub had non-slip stick ons that seemed embedded in the tub and the tub itself was worn and well used, the shower curtain holder may have be older than the apartment. The sink had cracks throughout the basin. Another utility that was at least as old as apartment and looked bad. The water stopper was broken and had to be lifted out with finger nails to lift it out.The medicine cabinet was also older and well used with dents on edges and the closing clip kept coming off. There were 2 broken off hook stick ups with base and broken off hooks, the toilet bowl tank had water with mold floating in it, the toilet started rocking and moving when you sat down on it or got up, the water in the toilet would form mold rings quickly, there were the same worn out look of the trim like the other rooms, there was water damage done to cabinet and it was warping out of shape, the ugliest part was the thick, very thick caulking around the edge of everything on the floor around sind cabinet, along the walls, around the entire toilet bowl and along the bathtub, when told about the warp look and mold, I was told that bleach would take care of the mold, and when I wasn't there someone had caulked the cabinet more by the warped area and the toilet was skimmed but no smell of bleach and it reappeared within 2 days. The area that contained the water heater was filthy and moldy. When told to office they must have came in and partially cleaned it, but upon closer inspection the hose that the water ran through had build up in that looked gross and you could still smell mold. When this was mentioned to Manager she said to just use candles and plug ins to hide the smell. That to me was very unprofessional, and when I presented this list of things that were to me unacceptable for a higher priced apartment I was told they couldn't fix most of it. I was surprised and wondered why did I even have to make a list if nothing was gonna be done about stuff. Out of everything the things that were fixed were: the screens were like sewn like to make holes smaller, the warped area was caulked more, the moldy dirty area of the water heater was partially cleaned on floor and outside of heater, but behind was still messy and moldy and the hoses were still filthy and heavily crusted with something inside them. The moldy smell would build up and I would keep buying plugins, and I actually kept getting sick off and on the time I stayed there. A friend said that when he came over he could always smell the mold and that it was making me sick. During my first month there I was attacked and raped by someone. They pushed from behind me into the apartment. I am not saying the apartment complex was the cause, but it not help that I did not see the guy because there were overgrown tall bushes and a storage stairway that took up main middle area, so I feel that the conditions of the grounds were not safe. After the incident the bushes were trimmed down to make the view better.
The position I was in prevented me from being able to leave. Unfortunately my problems grew worse and I had to move earlier than the lease. There was no sympathy of my situation, no possible working out penalty of breaking lease. I was told it would go straight to collection agency that they do not work with payments from people. It made me feel that what ever it cost was worth leaving that place even though I financially had no choice. I received no sympathy when I was attacked and raped. When it did come up with the manager somehow after the attack because I didn't want to stay in the same apartment. I was told 1. This is so strange we have never had a problem with this before (like I brought it on). I wasn't offered another apartment, only that I could leave at that time with penalty. Like I said I had no where else to go at that time so I had to stay in that same apartment for the last three months I was at those apartments. I don't know what the penalty will be yet, but I personally feel that the apartment management was low key and for the same of 50 dollars more I could have gotten an apartment that had security, and offered top notch fringe benefits, and they were new and bigger apartments. Oh I almost forgot to mention the creepy part.
Creepy part: found spiders webs and nesting in cabinet after they had sprayed, I went out and got my own spray and cleaned out the spider webs. Then throughout my stay somehow I had big spiders walk across my frontroom 4 times I killed one. I found a small spider climbing on my shoulder while I sat watching TV. I then started noticing spiders in bedroom, and bathroom, I also killed some bugs here and there, and the final straw was the amount of crickets I found in the apartment when I never opened the front door. How did these spiders,bugs,and crickets get in there? I complained and a person came and sprayed again. I tryed to get them to spray all the rooms but the person was quick and much in a hurry. I discovered dead smaller crickets and some bugs after that, but within a week the spiders were back and I found crickets in my kitchen cabinets. I am definitely not a bug person. Plus I would wake up with bites on my face, ears, neck, arm, and leg several times, some worse than others. So the healthy atmosphere is very questionable when mold and bugs are considered small problems that are not taken care of as they should be.
I feel that for the price I was paying I could have been in the newer apartments that offered free cappuccino, top rated services, clean and new apartments for real, car ports, gym, laundry mat, washer and dryers included in that high price range as this apartment complex, carts that would pick you up to go to the pool if you lived in the farther apartments. I feel that if you want to pay rent of 750 to 850 look around Arnold closer because Richardson Place apartments is not worth that price until they catch up to the future in what is considered new and appealing. I won't name the better ones. But they are not far from Richardson Place apartments.
I personally try not to be negative and so this had to be bad for me to say anything in a review.

Recommended: NO Overall Rating

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