An okay place to live
From:
-Anonymous-
Date posted:
11/20/2002
Years at this apartment:
2001
-
2002
I lived in Amberson Plaza during the 2001-2002 school year. I was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon. The location was one of the primary reasons I chose this apartment complex. Since this building is about 1 mile from the Carnegie Mellon campus, you can easily walk, ride your bike, drive (if you have a parking permit at school), take the CMU shuttle, or take the PAT bus to campus. Pitt is a little farther, but still within a 30 minute or so walk. I only rode my bike a few times, because the road to campus (Morewood) is very narrow, and I often had to ride on the sidewalk to avoid cars (and on the sidewalk, I had to avoid pedestrians, people walking their dogs in Shadyside, etc). So I usually just walked toward the end of the school year, since biking only saved 5 minutes over walking. Also, the CMU shuttle is very unreliable in the summer, but thats another issue....
There were a lot of good things and a lot of bad things about this apartment complex, so the easiest way is to just list them all. The good first:
Good:
- New building for the area - built in 1970
- Well insulated, especially if you live on the top floors (note that this is a bad thing in the summer months)
- Friendly staff (although you often have to follow up on a maintenance request, and "nag" them until its done)
- Lots of annemities (although I never used the billiards room, excersize room, and I only used the pool once)
- Fairly secure complex - I never had any problems, although I occasionally heard about people getting their car broken into or stolen. I left my car outside for a month during Christmas break with a club on, and it was fine. A PPD cop lives in the building, and I was told he periodically patroles the building.
- Good noise insulation from your neighbors. I never heard my neighbors while inside my apartment, and no one ever complained me, and I often had my TV at a fairly high volume, pretty late into the nighttime.
- On-site daycare center, if you have young kids
- Roomy floorplans
- Free storage rooms (I never used them, though)
Bad:
There is a lot of outside noise coming in from the day care, the nearby train tracks, and the busway. This was most annoying during the summer months when I left the window open. You get used to it with the window closed, since they are dual-paned windows.
- I constantly had very tiny bugs in my bathtub. I couldnt figure out how to get rid of them, so I just lived with it. They didnt hurt me.
- I found about an average of 1 (dead) roach per month in my apartment.
- Especially during the summer months, parking can be a problem during the week. I only ran into the problem once, though, when I came back well after midnight. I had to park my car elsewhere, and move the car at around 6 AM so I wouldnt get towed.
- The hallways always smelled funny to me. I think its due to the garbage chute. It was okay inside my apartment, though.
- Management automatically takes out $75 for carpet cleaning when you move out. However, that was the only part of my deposit I didnt get back.
- Theres a Pitt dorm in the same parking lot. I never had any trouble with the Pitt kids, but occasionally, they like to loiter in the parking lot areas. If this bugs you, this could be a bad thing.
- Somewhat expensive, although for the area (in Shadyside, on the Bloomfield border), its about comporable with other complexes.
- Laundry machines and dryers were often broken. This was never a problem, however, since there are 8 of each, and I never had a problem finding available ones.
- Cable Internet is not available. DSL, I believe, is available.
- Yes, the fire alarms were annoying! Every time there was an alarm, the fire department would have to come. Usually, it was because someone burnt their dinner, and set off the alarm, which could only be turned off by the fire department and the management. (One time the mangement wasn't around, so the alarm couldn't be turned off for a while)
Miscelaneous comments:
It seems like 90% of the tenants are international graduate students (mainly from Asia) who are going to CMU or Pitt! Thats a good thing if thats the sort of environment you like. Its a bad thing if thats not what you want.... I could never figure out why that was the case. I guess because of the location, age of the building, and that it has a daycare downstairs. Lots of families in this building with young kids (the kids were never a problem, except for the noise from the day care)
All in all, an okay place to live. Im not too fond of Pittsburgh, but if I had to move back there, Id consider Amberson Plaza.
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