There are many great features about the Aventine: the apartments are quite large, there are washer and dryers are in the units, the shuttle service is fantastic, and the newly renovated Media and pool rooms are lovely. Larry, the bus driver, is the friendliest person on staff and knows a majority of tenants by name. Packages are delivered at the front desk and retrievable with an ID and package slip providing an air of security with package delivery. Further, the newly renovated apartments are stunning.

Unfortunately, most apartments look nothing like what they show you on the tour.
Other problems include security: garage doors are often left open and/or do not function properly, making the "controlled access" part of living here circumspect. Delivery people enter in and out of the building with ease -- without ever notifying the tenant of their arrival. The workout room is outdated and machines are frequently broken and in need of repair. Maintenance requests are rarely filled within 24 hours; you are lucky to get them filled in a week, if at all. Rodents are also an issue - in both the summer and the winter. The front desk staff, while friendly for the most part, are unhelpful and rarely have answers to questions. To be fair, the front desk staff does write down your requests, but no one from management ever follows up on them. The tenants must constantly follow-up on maintenance issues and on issues dealing with the leasing office. If you are not persistent, you will not get a phone call back to discuss your problems. Oftentimes it requires personal face-to-face interactions with the leasing office staff in order to get anything taken care of and solved.

Some of these problems in the apartments (gleaned from tenant discussions on the shuttle) include: second-hand smoke infiltrating non-smoking apartments from the air-vents, falling shower tiles, non-working new HVAC units (i.e. the AC never gets cold), broken exhaust fans, loose cabinets, falling soap dishes in the shower, broken elevators, and leaking walls/ceilings (from the roof or another apartment). In addition, due to all the construction in the garage at the moment, there is no parking. Cars are frequently double parked making it impossible to navigate throughout the garage and leave for work. Tires accumulate nails in them with frequency from workers leaving construction materials around. The ceilings leak leaving oily residues on cars which take lots of work to remove. All the cars are coated with dust. Many residents are forced to find street parking because the guest parking lot is filled with worker vehicles -- even at night.

While the tour and the discount the Aventine gives might be fantastic, living here definitely is not. I have lived in numerous apartments over the years, in DC and in other cities, and have never had as negative of an experience with an apartment as this one.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 08/20/2008
Funny you mention the tour. Anyone taking a tour should try to change the route the sales staff wants to take you through the building. I would be amused to be a fly on the wall just to watch their reactions to see how they would try to convince you to stay on the predetermined "Tour" route. LMAO!!

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