First of all I am taking allot of time to review this apartment so if you are thinking of renting here you will want to read ALL of this.

My girlfriend, our roommate and I stayed at Burkeshire Commons for almost 3 years.
The management staff was very aloof in general. Maintainance manager was very kind and was there through our entire 3 years while the other maintainance helpers were coming and going.

Here is the bad before the good because the bad outweighed the good (by a fair amount too):

1. Rent was too expensive. The location is great. Right off 7100 Fairfax county parkway and near Braddock which services 495 freeway as well as by George Mason University so the apartments are conveniently in a prime area. The square footage was pretty good for compared to others but $1850 for a 3 bedroom on a year lease' It's feasible but when we only resigned for a 6 month lease because we were not sure if we wanted to leave it ballooned to $2100!! $2100 for a 3 bedroom apartment'! In this economy there is no way anyone would consider paying this when you can get a townhouse or house and rent it for similar or even less (Paying now $1850 for 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom with a full size backyard) but the economy is another story let's stick to the apartment. In no way did the apartment complex was willing to offer or work with us on price to keep their "loyal" customers. I work in customer service and sales and customer loyalty in this economy is paramount in order to stay in the good financially. Apparently Burkeshire Commons has it that good that they do not have any inclination of what customer service is or even aware of wanting to keep tenants.

2. Security! Burkshire is not gated. There is a somewhat wooded alley in the back and a tenant was jumped and robbed behind our apartment. Apparently the tenant knew of the person who attacked him'' My girlfriend and I was skeptical of that tenant being involved in drugs the whole time we were tenants there. There was a parking light that was out the entire time of our 2 years there that never got replaced that was over the area of where my girlfriends and I cars would be parked at night. Despite numerous requests for us to have it fixed.

My car window got smashed in. Nothing was stolen out of the car which made me think either it was someone driving by throwing a rock, inside the complex because the window was facing the management office or by the yardwork people who routinely weedwack areas that do not need to be weedwacked. I was parked by the end row. I can pretty much guarantee it was from Burkeshire Commons outsourced crew. My dad had a weedwacker and one time it skipped a rock through one of door windows. The force it takes to shatter a window is extreme and it shatters in a unique fashion like that had happened to my window. Again nothing was stolen. Now for peace of mind I can understand it being bad luck of some kid trying to be cool throwing a rock at a car or that it was an accident by a yard cleaning service. No big deal, I can handle those 2 excuses. What galls me is that when i walked out to my car to work and found the window smashed I walked over to the management office to report it and if they had seen anything and they said "oh yeah, the maintainance people told us they saw it smashed and that it must have happened through the night". So the management knew that one of their tennants car windows were smashed and didn't have the courtesy to come tell me even though they have in their records what kind of cars belongs to what tennant. 5 hours had passed from when the yardwork people do their work till 1pm when I leave for my night shift. This is the kind of aloof management staff that works at Burkeshire Commons. After asking neighbor's if they saw anything I heard other stories of vandalism to cars. Car emblems being taken off, someone smashed out another tenants window etc

Also the main road next to the apartments needs a streetlight or a policeman to slow down traffic. PEOPLE DRIVE WAY TOO FAST ON THIS CURVY BLIND HILL AND NOT THE BEST LIT ROAD!!!! I saw 2 accidents and a school kid waiting for her bus that got hit by people driving too fast. Spend a night out there watching and see what I mean. Being in the apartment closest to the road every single night I could hear people nearly racing on a street that no one should be driving over 20 miles per hour because there are so many kids in this area. Yet every night we would hear at least 5 cars drive much too fast even burning rubber outside in the one to two hours we lay in bed reading or listening to music before we go to bed.

I am 6 foot 6 220 pounds and there aren't most places that I don't feel safe in so i rated security 2 out of 5 but if I was a younger or older lady it could be a 1. There's no gang members around and street walkers because it's Burke but from the traffic and the complex's lack of upkeep it could be as bad as it could be in a generally quite area of Burke

Air conditioning went out several times before they actually decided to replace it causing nearly 2 weeks total of extremely hot and humid days. The maintainance manager eventually became a friend due to use both having in common that Burkeshire Commons and thier management are unexceptable and that the place needs a major update. I hear he left now so good luck on who's left there now.

EVERYTHING in the apartment especially the applicances are running on 25-30 years of use and are out of date. Basically the whole facility needs a makeover and update. Come to think of it the management must be almost embarrassed to show these apartment to prospectors. This apartment was picked by my roommate before I saw it causing me to never trust anyone's judgement on an apartment again. That's a long story and I work allot. But I made it a pact to never have a major say in where we live from then on out.

Of course the normal things with other tennats. The ceilings are somewhat thin and sound moves through them pretty well. For a year of the 2 and a half years we have a group of frat kids upstairs with parties eventually calling the police. Remember it's by George Mason so you might get something similar. One time it got so out of hand they almost got into a fight with neighbor accross the street because they were so drunk. Beer bong on the patio outside, loud music the works. Bad luck with the neighbor but management did nothing about it. We had to call the cops on that night.

These tenants moved in across the hall towards the end of out lease. Every night there would be their nights fast food trash thrown in the street, by their car, by the stairs. It was like clockwork. For months, trash everywhere! Cigarette butts so bad the management company actually had to warn them. We left our trash out one night, someone kicked it down the stairs and on our door when we got home we had a notice that if we didn't throw our trash away we would get hit with a fine. I was so ---- it that I didn't even bring it up to management that it got kicked down because we normally do not leave our trash outside our door. I knew it wouldn't happen again because I once again was reassured the neighbors sucked! Not all of them but about half.


The good:

We had moved from the 2 bedroom to the 3 bedroom when my girlfriend moved in and they transfered the pet deposit and rent deposit which made the move to the other apartment hassle free.

Our deposit was returned with no issues and the final walk through was a breeze maybe because they didn't care what kind of state it was in because they knew the carpet had to be replaced. The tenant who lived in the apartment was there 7 years and because we had a large dog and 2 cats we had to pay no pet deposit because they were going to have to replace the carpet anyways after we left. we were in the apartment for 2 and a half years.

Location of the apartments. I said that already.

The only reason this apartment got 2 stars was because the square footage was good and that we had allot of special memories being my girlfriend and I's moved in with each other.

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