I'm going to go straight down the list of rating point by point and discuss why each recieved a rating of 1 star.

-Parking- When I first moved in I thought that the parking situation was very nice. The woman who showed me the apartment told me I had my pick from spots, and parking would not be a problem. I moved in over the summer, so there were very few people here as school was not in session yet. Once students started arriving parking became an utter disaster. The only notice of parking is a sign outside stating that it is for tenant use only, and there is a clause in the lease stating that no broken down vehicles are allowed to be parked, and no tractor trailor rigs. Sounds fair. Until they start having cars towed away at 4am for being parked in the lot. Apparently, despite the signs and lease information, it is a PAY LOT. If you don't have a payed spot (which you are not told about up front) you WILL BE TOWED. Not to mention the fact that there are several OBVIOUSLY ABANDONED VEHICLES in lot, haven't budged and inch since i moved in. Also not a week would go by without a new pile of broken glass from someone's car being broken into in the parking lot or on the street directly in front of the building.

-Noise- Don't even get me started on the noise. I have not slept in the "bedroom" of this apartment in three months. Forget the fact that my neighbor is the loudest most ridiculous person ever, and I can hear him BREATHING through the wall, if someone so much as walks above you or up and down the stairs it will pratically echo through your unit. I am NOT exaggerating. I have also filed SEVERAL complaints for noise against the tenant next to me, however (despite there being a clause in the lease stating no more than THREE noise violations will be tolerated) they STILL have done nothing at all about the noise.

-Grounds- Its a total dump. There is garbage not only all over the parking lot, but all over the INSIDE of the building. And not a little bit. We're talking entire plates of food left on the steps, what appears to be a pot of spaghetti sauce THROWN against the wall, drug paraphernalia everywhere (I found several joint roaches stashed inside the walls and under loose floor tiles throughout my entire unit), empty liquor bottles strewn about the building. There are large appliances such as old stoves, microwaves, and refrigerators just lining the hallways. The parking lot is maintained perhaps once every six months (and the fact that there are not enough dumpsters for all the tenants to properly dispose of trash does not help the parking lot situation). Over the summer a tree was downed in the course of a large storm and it lay across a drive-way to the building, a neighboring buildings yard, the sidewalk, and a foot into the street for almost TWO MONTHS before anything was done about it. Not to mention the power lines it knocked over weren't moved either. More than once I have encountered used prophylactics (read: USED CONDOMS) on the floors of the building. I have also encountered what I hope to be animal feces on the hall floor (I say hope, because I like to pretend no human can do their business in the hallway of an apartment building.). And as several users have already noted the roach problem is absolutely unbearable. The building was evacuated for a day to spray for bugs and when I returned not only had the problem not been fixed, but my bed, dishes, books, record collection, computer, and clothes had all been covered in a mix of white foam and sawdust-like roach poison.

-Safety- As i stated before, if you plan on keeping a car here, make sure there's nothing valuable in it, it will probably be broken into. Recently a fire alarm was pulled in the course of a party (occurring openly in the halls of the building at 3am) and while the response of the fire department was exceptionally quick, there was a problem with the alarm and it could not be disarmed for several HOURS. I understand south oakland may not be the safest part of town, but this complex just adds insult to injury, so to speak. Also, in regards to fire, you can see where the fire escapes USED to be, however now all that remains are the holes on the outsides of the building, and doors that open to a thin sheet of ply-wood protecting you from a 30 foot fall. EDIT: According to the Pitt News on 11/12/2007 two people were apparently SHOT INSIDE THE BUILDING.


-Construction- Despicable. The building is in shambles. Cold air pours in through all my windows, and the fact that none of the equipped heating units are properly attached to the wall I am afraid to use them. That wouldn't be so bad if the wiring in the building wasn't a fire hazard. I plugged in a brand-new Energy Star Compliant space heater to try to ward off the cold, and on 4 outlets it tripped a breaker, and on the fifth it the outlet actually CAUGHT FIRE. The "brand new" floor tile was already peeling up off of the floor, and the carpeting tacks stick out of the floor and I have repeatedly cut my foot open walking across the carpet bare-foot. They also used some sort of water soluble paint on the bathtub (yes they PAINTED the bathtub) and now it is peeling and every time i shower I must pick bits of paint off of myself. The safety railings are more a hazard than a safety device, while the fire department was here for the fire alarm one of the firefighters almost toppled down a flight of stairs as the railing practically gave out under the weight of his hand. Also, I have learned that I can NOT turn off the light in my bathroom, I can, but its not in my best interest. Every single time, without fail, that I turn the light on I WILL blow a lightbulb, and i've found the cheapest, easiest way to deal with it, is to leave the light on all the time. I learned that lesson the hard way, as I replaced the lightbulb literally 10-12 times before I realized what was even happening.

-Maintenance- I'm going to leave this short. There is still masking tape on all of my cupboards and light fixtures from the painting before I moved in. It was supposed to be removed before I even moved in, however, it's still there. Maintenance calls are all but ignored, and no work has been performed that I have requested yet, and I've been requesting most of them regularly for half a year.

-Staff- Couldn't tell you. As soon as I moved in my rental agent not only stopped returning my calls, but shortly after had her NUMBER CHANGED. Assuming you can get through to an actual representative (they use an answering service) it's like talking to someone you just punched in the face. E-mail usually takes a week to be replied to, and even then you are lucky to get several broken, uninformative sentences in reply, no matter the problem.

-Other- I was told when I moved in that all i needed to pay was electric, however I get bills monthly from Trends Capital asking for money for water and sewage. It took almost two months to receive a key to my mailbox (and you must register the box with a form placed in the box, so where my mail went for those two months I never did find out). Maintenance had no problem walking RIGHT INTO my apartment early one morning, as far as I could tell they didnt even knock.

I can not stress this enough. DO NOT MOVE IN TO THIS BUILDING. It will be the worst decision you can make, TRUST ME. For the price and the hassle, you are better off renting off of someone who privately owns one or two buildings. Don't waste your time or money even looking at the place.

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