Overall, I like Argosy. Its quality is in between the typically-rundown apartments near UT and the nicer apartments made for working people. Argosy is in a great location--within about 5 minutes to Mopac, 183, and I35. It's also within 10 minutes to the main UT campus during the evening traffic. Argosy is in a rougher part of town, but it's also sort of excluded from it. I havent seen suspicious characters loitering around or anything. The neighborhood next to it seems quite safe--I see lots of girls alone by themselves at night! The neighborhood residents also seem like nice people.

My few maintenance requests have been responded to very soon (within a day or two). The price seems a little higher than the few other apartments in this area but it is a quiet, fairly well-maintained complex. Like many apartment complexes, some of the repair jobs are really patch jobs. That is not a terrible thing. I haven't met any neighbors who seem like irresponsible hoodlums.

If you move here, you MUST avoid living below another unit (even if you are a heavy sleeper). Despite the denial by apartment management, the noise from neighbors walking upstairs is really much louder and more resonant than other complexes I've lived in as a student. If you can't avoid it, make sure at least you have someone walk around in the unit above to check the upstairs noise before you sign the lease.

Also, avoid parking in the guest area along the exterior wall. It means you have to get home before about 9-11 pm depending on the time of the schoolyear. The FIRST night I spent in Argosy, my parents and I went out to our car parked in the guest spaces and were horrified to find that BOTH cars next to ours had their windows smashed in and the CD player stolen.

The management here isn't too bad compared to some others I've met living in Austin. As experienced with typical apartment management around Austin, the extreme hospitality they show you at first does disappear after you sign the lease, but they are not as cruel and unfair later on. They even seem nice in general.

My cell phone reception was with AT&T Wireless and it was awful until about a month ago. Also, inspect the lease contract in case there is an extra month in the x-month lease.

Annoying things about living here that can't be helped is the poor timing of the traffic light at Justin Lane and North Lamar, and then north at Airport and North Lamar. The Justin Lane-North Lamar traffic light lasts almost 2 minutes! :( Or, if you head west, you'll be stuck stopping for 3-4 stop signs. The slight uneven road when you turn into the Argosy main entrance always makes me cringe.

Great conveniences include the Walgreens next to the complex, the HEB on Koenig and Burnet, Highland Mall within 2 miles, the #1 busstop at Justin Lane and North Lamar, and the traffic light if you're a passive driver like me who hates entering traffic without lights. The water bill is also included in the rent.

I would renew my lease again as long as the rent doesn't increase.

Update on July 23, 2004:
One of the managers surprised me recently by doing something very honorable and totally unnecessary on her part with regards to my lease renewal; this type of action makes me believe that Argosy management does care about its residents' longterm satisfaction rather than locking them in for a contract. A lesson I learned is to inspect the lease terms very carefully and make sure to have any ambiguous wordings explained clearly. Even if something small looks like it could have simply been overlooked should be asked about. It is better to be safe than sorry.

Earlier this year, two neighbors moved in below me. Unfortunately, one of them seems to like to hang out on the patio smoking so I can't open my windows anymore. Even if I close the windows, I can still smell traces of smoke inside. The neighbor also smokes inside his apartment--I guess he deactivates the smoke alarm. Sometimes, when I even tape up the edges of the window, I can still smell remnants of smoke.

None of the neighbors I've seen here so far seem wild or rowdy. It's pretty quiet most of the time. An annoying thing is that the garbage truck comes at odd times and could wake you up if you like to sleep with the window open.

The parking lot here is spacious and well-designed. Each space is quite large and someone would have to be a real jerk to put a door ding in your car. During the Fall and Spring semesters, the parking lot on the west side of the complex tends to fill up completely, so that latecomers (11 pm and after) may need to park in the car-theft-prone visitor parking spaces. During the Summer, the parking lot on the west side tends to be only about 1/3 full, with most of the spaces on the north side of the complex filled. In the Summer, my car is very lonely. Two of my guests have parked in the non-visitor parking spaces without a parking sticker and they have not been towed. I've never even seen a tow truck drive through in the 1.75 years I've lived here but I haven't exactly been sitting outside late at night looking for them. I see a police car drive by occasionally--I hope it's just a regular patrol. I haven't seen any instances of crime other than the car CD player thefts.

This complex has a nice variety of floorplans. I live in the cheapest 1-1 design and I think it's well laid out. Closet space is efficiently organized. Basically a bedroom wall is made up of two sliding closet doors. The fireplace in the living room adds a nice aesthetic touch, but was just a waste of space for me. The higher ceilings make the unit feel bigger. The floor may not feel solid everywhere--it's lumpy in many places and you can feel it shift under your weight. My downstairs neighbors do hear me moving, unfortunately, but they seem to understand that I can't help it. The patio is large and comfortable.

Pest control comes every 3 months, but I've still seen a few baby roaches in my unit. :( There's a required security alarm that you have to pay $25 a year to get it monitored. I'm not sure how effective it is, though.

The laundry facilities are modern and ample as long as you avoid doing it at peak laundry times. They have about 8 SpeedQueen front-loading washers and 8 dryers in the west laundry room. One dryer ate my quarters and I never used it again.

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