Any reader of these reviews can see that there are many problems with 865 Bellevue/Knollwood. Comments about the staff, the grounds crew, the noise, the whatever. After a year in the place - and just about to get out, thank goodness - it's occurred to me that everything in my experience here revolved around the neighbors and whether or not they were noisy. You can't change the fact that these apartments are poorly constructed - thin walls, floors, ceilings. There's been a recent facelift, but don't be fooled. In my apartment, the electrical wiring matched the wrong switch to the wrong lights ("There's nothing wrong with the wiring" was what I got response until I insisted that they come fix it before I was electrocuted). The tape used in the mudwork is buckling, so all the corners are now twisting. There are still "blue dots" on incomplete repairs. All of that I could live with. But where it turned out I was unlucky was with neighbors. In fact, if you have neighbors here, you're pretty much doomed. Kids bounce and run up the stairs at all hours (I have them and love them but they have to be taught to live with others, right') The toilet seat slammed down next door reverberates like a gunshot. I'm glad the neighbors next to my bedroom like one another, really, but they often get home at 3 or 4am and their headboard bangs on the wall until they're "done." Another neighbor has lots of parties - an earlier review referred to hoards of young people cruising the parking lots in the early morning hours. Yep, the guy doing the inviting was my neighbor. I called the "courtesy attendant" - nice guy who's doing the best he can. Can't imagine how many times he gets up in the middle of the night! The cops came and it was fine for the rest of that night - until the next party a week or so later. The management put up security gates, which are a hoot since they haven't worked right since their installation. Some poor sap always tries to use his card to get in following the procedure - the rest of us just go around him and go in the open exit gate, which never closes at any time; it's been broken for months. So here's the thing: this place is so poorly constructed that no matter how friendly the staff is, how responsive they are or are not to requests for repair, how big the unit is, how good a "deal" you get to move in, you have to recognize that you're going to have neighbors and with these paper thin walls, you're going to hear them. Be really careful: management will tell you all you have to do is tell them about it. Not so. I can't recall how many times I called in the middle of the night, woken from a sound sleep even with a fan running as "white noise." The rule is that the courtesy attendant stands outside the offenders apartment and if he can't hear it, there's no violation. So if you're willing to invite the guy in at 3am to listen to your neighbors yelling at each other or making passionate love or running up and down the stairs, maybe you've got a chance. But I'd have a crew running through my apartment continuously. So, I'm giving up and moving on - to another complex that's better built, never burned down, and where I have just one neighbor. That would be my advice if you insist on living here: make sure you move into an apartment where the adjoining units will always be vacant - which as soon as word gets around about how lousy a place to live this is, shouldn't be too long now.

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