My Fiance and I lived in fairly nice apartment here for a little over a year.

The Apartment: The finishings in the apartment weren't stellar (laminate floors, faux countertops, white appliances, no ice maker, worn carpet) for the high rent we paid. We did have a beautiful view of the park across the street and out into Old Town, so I am sure that played a part in our rent price. Also, the building is very well insulated as well -- we like things a little chilly and never once turned on our heat during the winter. Never once heard our neighbors (which is funny, see part of review that addresses staff).

Building: Nice little park in the back. Average gym -- fairly nice equipment but the space is tiny and there aren't enough machines for a building of this size. Meeting room and clubroom looked nice, but I never really used either.

Location: Can't be beat. You're right next to Whole Foods and about a seven minute walk to King Street Metro (apartment door to metro platform). DASH bus stops in front of the building and Old Town is incredibly easy to access. Incredibly safe. As a night student, I came home late often and never felt uneasy walking in the area.

Parking: We paid $150 for two spots which is about the going rate. Spots are "larger" than most in this area but are by no means big. I drive a small toyota and could manuever easily (other larger vehicles required multiple point turns to access some parking spots). Right at the beginning of 2009, there were some break ins to vehicles but that was isolated and didn't worry me too much. (If you have anything valuable like a GPS or computer, don't leave it in plain site -- that's common sense.)

Staff: This is where my main issue is. A few days after moving in, we started being harassed by complaints of "loud machinery style noise" coming from our apartment. The complaints came at odd times: when we were out of the apartment or when we were sitting on the couch (both working on school assignments with the TV on mute). Apparently, the people below us were hearing a machine running in our den. As the complaints continued through the first few months of our lease, we did everything we could to resolve the issue. We offered to meet with the other residents (this was continually declined), we even had leasing staff up to the apartment to verify we had no machine. (In fact, the room they were hearing the noise from only contained our desks and computers -- no large noise-making machinery.)

After checking our apartment, the Leasing Office ASSURED us they would speak with the tenants below us and no further complaints would be brought against us. Then, about six months later, we received a complaint as we were getting ready for bed. Apparently our "machine" was acting up again. I mentioned the situation to our neighbors across the hall (a couple who happened to live in my apartment before I did) and, funny enough, they'd had the SAME PROBLEM. The folks living below complained about hearing a loud, machinery noise when this other couple lived there as well. Even better is the fact that the couple informed me that a LEASING AGENT for the building lived below us! So, the leasing office allowed these complaints to continue even when they KNEW it had been an issue with previous tenants (who also had their apartment checked out and again, NO MACHINE was found) because of one of their staff.

I was furious and felt rather harassed. For the past nine months, I'd been made to feel like I was disturbing other residents with my non-existent machine. Instead, a member of the leasing staff was just hearing pipes or perhaps the elevators our apartment kitchens backed up to and was allowed to harass not one but two sets of apartment tenants. I was, and remain, incredibly unimpressed with how this situation was handled.

When our lease was up, my fiance and I moved down the street to the newer Meridian. We have an apartment that's slightly smaller but MUCH nicer. The staff has been wonderful for the past three or four months and we've yet to be harassed about a machine that doesn't exist.

User Responses
From: dc_apt	Date: 07/11/2009
Could you plz let me know where's the new place down the street of Meridian? I'm looking for a place right. So I appreciate your input!
From: machinefree	Date: 07/12/2009
Meridian Eisenhower. Literally just around the corner from Meridian Carlyle but with different staff.

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