I will give a disclaimer - I've only been living here for 2 days so far. However, the experience has been so bad across the board that I'm confident this will be as positive a review as I can write of this place.

Originally, I was drawn to the place because of the rent terms - $419/month, 6-12 month leases, you pick. My previous apartment played this stupid gimmick of charging a month's rent for a week's stay in August, so when I saw that the first week was effectively free, I figured it would be a reasonable establishment to stay in.

WRONG. The day I come to check in, the warning bells go off. First, they can't find me in their spreadsheet. They say they're going to go look for my lease - 20 minutes later, they're still frantically searching seemingly endless boxes of leases, and I'm worried that they've misplaced or flat out lost my lease. After 30 minutes of poking and prodding, they finally found it in a stack of papers in the middle of who knows where, not even in a file yet. I thought initially the management must be understaffed, but given how many people I saw in the offices, they must just be astonishingly incompetent and/or inefficient.

At any rate, I figured the worst was behind me - move in to my room, and be on my way. By some stroke of luck the management had a completely empty 4x4, so they put me in that and let me pick my room. The apartment itself is nice enough, although the furniture is badly stained in places. However, there were clearly a couple of problems, like a broken front deadbolt and a shower curtain which keeps falling off at the slightest touch (it's clearly too small). When I go to the front office, they tell me that I really ought to go buy my own shower rod, and that a broken deadbolt is no big deal since the card reader works fine. Seriously' You screwed up on two accounts, and told me I'm financially responsible for one and the other is no big deal' Terrible customer service epitomized. The only saving grace is that the apartment is empty at the moment, so I can shower in another bath for the time being, but I doubt that will hold for much longer, and what if I had 3 roommates'

In addition, it was clear some paint work had been done recently, as the internet jack in my room was taped over, and peeling off the tape revealed that the jack itself had been pushed so far into the wall that it was unusable. So I go to the apartment people, and they tell me I need to contact the ISP, Pavlov Media.

This is where I really lost it. Pavlov Media's customer support lines are eternally busy, and you will never, EVER get someone on the phone talking with you in under 10 minutes (and this was only after a half-dozen calls). They take up to 3 business days to process work orders, and because my problem was "only a broken wall jack", I was told it would most likely not happen in under 3 days! In the mean time, I went into another room (since the apt is vacant except for me) to use the functional jack there, and I discover the free package speed is 768 kbps up, 256 kbps down. Nothing to write home about for sure, but then after about 2 or 3 hours max, I notice that my internet is getting SEVERELY throttled. It's so bad my computer keeps popping up warnings about "limited or no connection." I do a little research, and apparently Pavlov has an inexplicable 250 MB combined upload/download limit per 24 hours, after which the speed goes to crap. At this point I've just about had it.

To add to my irritation, the security seems virtually nonexistent. Most apartment complexes have some kind of pedestrian gates for which you need a key - this one has nothing of the sort. In fact, there's just a great big gap in the fence right near the leasing office and vehicle gate through which anybody can walk in and out of the complex freely. What good are the shiny police officer cars outside the gate when anyone can walk in and out without a key'


In short, the only things that are really provided for here are a place to sleep and cook. Just about everything else is terrible - the management is overstretched and inefficient, the internet is pure garbage, and they shrug off their maintenance problems as either your financial responsibility or not a big deal. I can tell I'm already in for a long year, and am definitely going to be doing more thorough research before finding an apartment in Austin any time soon.

User Responses
From: ariel.aaron	Date: 08/27/2008
Just hang in there and remember that it's not forever. I just moved from Campus (University) Estates about three months ago and I had a similar experience on my move in date. Here are a few links to some pictures of my apartment when I moved in (it's funny, my old apartment is now the model home in 1212. You cant even tell it used to be a Hell hole LOL). http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423554 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423557 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423568 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423573 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423575 http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=13538475&albumID=2118150&imageID=42423583 ENJOY!!
From: Anonymous	Date: 09/03/2008
This pretty much sums it up really really WELL! The place is TERRIBLE.
From: helen123065	Date: 10/30/2008
I think the media needs to get hold of this place. This is just darn right awful. I have had a horrible experience with this place since my daughters moved in. To say the least to poor record management they served my daughters an eviction notice, then when I thought it was all straightened my daughters received a court document from the constable for eviction? What the hell is that about, hopefully today I will be able to talk to someone who knows something. Talking to the people who answer the phone, this has happened to a bunch of tenants.

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