My roommates and I have lived here almost 2 years. It was really hard (for whatever reason) at the time for us to find a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment in Portland, so when we found this one at a reasonable price (at the time it was $910 a month) we were pretty excited. Before this I had only lived downtown and was looking forward to paying less rent.
Let me start off by saying the location is excellent. I've come to love Hillsdale and since we were all students at the time at Portland State, we really liked the idea of a 15-minute bus ride to campus. It's also really safe (as far as I know.)
Now, for the apartment. We are on the "older" side in an upper unit and when we moved in and did the first walkthrough, it looked like it had barely been cleaned. There was a piece of flattened lettuce on the cutting board, smoke stains on the ceiling, some wood-shavings on the carpet, weird little decals in the bathtub that apparently "could not be removed" even though I pulled them up with my bare hands later, and some carpet stains. We also later noticed painted over glow star decorations on the walls and ceilings. The leasing staff agent who was doing the walkthrough with us did acknowledge that their cleaning staff had not done the best job and admitted that it was an older apartment and it was kind of beat up, and I think the admission counts for something, at least. In any case, we meticulously wrote EVERYTHING DOWN on the first walkthrough form so as to not get charged for anything we didn't do. But, for a 1200 sq-foot apartment with 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, the price was right, it was in fairly good condition although not the best, so we tried not to worry about it too much and just sort of joked about it.
My biggest complaints would have to be the mold and insulation. I am a very, very clean person, so we've kept most of the mold at bay, but it does creep up in the windowsills. Also, there is nasty creeping crud on the back of the toilet tanks, right up against the wall (which is also moldy) and it's very hard to get to. The windows are metal so it gets very drafty, and last winter (when it was the "arctic blast" drama), it was unbearably cold. Forget about using your baseboard heaters unless you want a $140 a month P.G.E. bill. We use space heaters and have reduced the energy bill from that to around $80-90 a month, which isn't great, but it's definitely better. Also, during the warmer months, the kitchen sink/dishwasher area has a very strange smell (which we try to knock out with baking soda) but I think the problem is in the walls or something (maybe a dead animal' Yuck.)
We haven't had any issues with bug infestations or mice like someone else had, but that may be because we are on the top floor. We can't really hear our neighbors, and all the neighbors we've had have been pretty cool, which is really just luck of the draw in any apartment complex. When we went to renew our lease, they raised the rent $80, which sucked but is still doable. The maintenance people are pretty on top of things, and really nice guys to boot, and most of the office staff are pretty nice, and the managers make an effort to get to know their tenants (at least, that's been our experience.) I'm not super impressed with the rest of the staff, to me it's obvious that this is just a job to them. The pool is nice (when its open) but I recommend going later in the day if you don't want to swim with a bunch of kids, lol. The gym's not bad either. I've never really had any issues with parking although guest parking is kind of sparse.
Overall, it's a nice place to live for the price but ONLY IF YOU'RE STAYING FOR A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. I can't stress this enough. If it's just a place to live while you finish college, or until you can afford a house, or whatever the circumstance, it's perfect. But with the abundance of mold and poor insulation, a long stay could prove detrimental to your health, and the expensive P.G.E. bills are a complete waste of money. I don't think we are renewing our lease in September because I think we're all going to go our separate ways. If you're thinking about moving here to start a family or to settle down for retirement- find someplace with energy-efficient windows and central heating, if you can.
It's a fantastic-sized apartment, and it was fine for our purposes, but it may not be fine for others. I probably wouldn't live here again unless I could get an apartment on the newer side, but I've heard from friends that their P.G.E. bills are just as expensive and it gets really cold over there, too.
When we move out, I'll post an update about deposits and such.
I hope this proved helpful to some of you, happy apartment hunting!

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/24/2009
Not only the insulation, the other drawback is that the management shall try their level best not to refund a penny of your security deposi. They shall give you an unclean apartment, but expect you give back a completely clean one so that they can pass it off to the next tenant with having to get their maintenance staff to do a clean themselves.

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