disclaimer: I'm not the leaseholder (my roommate is), so I don't deal directly with the management all that much.
In the 6 months that I've lived here, I've had relatively few problems. The maintenance staff are very prompt in addressing complaints (specifically, we had a leak, a plumbing issue, and a couple of other issues that my roommate called in). They keep the pool area very clean. The fitness room is not too bad (3 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, 2 exercise bikes and some weights). The parking situation is quite good relative to other places: there's always a guard watching the entrance and you get an assigned spot. (I've found my spot occupied [by a guest, presumably] three times, which meant I had to go to the 8th floor and park in the guest area, but it was not big deal.) The continental breakfast on Saturday morning is better than I would have thought (it's still not very good, mind you, but it's better than, say, continental breakfast at Holiday Inn Express).
The area nearby does not seem dangerous to me. I walk outside all the time and I don't feel threatened at all. But I'm used to city living, so the fact that a completely harmless homeless woman is living across Cleburne St doesn't phase me in the slightest. Be aware that those who complain about safety are most likely suburbanites.
There have been a few reports of burglaries (a bike, maybe a car broken into, if I recall), but that seems to be on par (or better) for Houston apartment complexes.
There are nice restaurants in walking distance (Julia's, Tafia, Tacos a Go-Go), and Tafia has a nice farmer's market in the parking lot every Saturday morning.
MINOR CON: the hallway carpet is pretty nasty.
MUCH BIGGER CON: the fire alarms. I haven't heard it go off for a couple of months now (but I'm not home much during the day), but we have REPEATEDLY had instances of the alarm going off IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT for a looooong time. (what was the longest...half an hour' an hour' I can't remember exactly, but it seemed to go on for ever.) Ventana subsequently issues written statements saying that it's the fault of residents who pull fire alarms, or who smoke in the hallways, or who disable the fire alarms in their apartments (but of course the reason they are disabling them is b/c the damn fire alarms keep going off!) I actually asked a fireman who was there one evening the alarm went off -- I was waiting outside -- why the alarm is always going off and he shook his head and said "the system here is all messed up." Now, I'm not accusing the management of lying -- smoking may be the direct cause, after all -- but I suspect that the problem could be fixed if they threw more money at it. Perhaps they've looked into it and found out that the only fix is a complete overhaul of the system.
Oh, let me add that when we've had brief power outages in the past, this seems to confuse the system and make the alarm go off. No notices about kids pulling alarms or smokers in the stairwells after those instances!
Oh, and can I just say: what moron designed a fire alarm system for a large apartment complex so that IT CAN'T BE TURNED OFF if someone, somewhere in the building, disables one of the units'
Not every one's room is like this, but in MY room there is an alarm unit that is so freakin loud that there is no way I can stay when it goes off. I bought some earplugs and put them on my nightstand so that I can immediately put them in when it does go off, but it's still too loud.
I gave five stars under "noise" b/c I never hear my neighbors through the thick, concrete walls. I consider the fire alarm a separate issue. BuLYzGcKAVo8MQPlcXJq

User Responses
From: nowitall	Date: 02/08/2009
All it takes is one drunk with a surround sound system living above you and you'll change your rating about 'sound'. I cannot believe that in the two years since we lived at Ventana the fire alarm is still going off unnecessarily. Amazing.

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