I moved out of Belle Arts in June after living there a year. My apartment faced west, so it had a great view. The upside was we barely turned the heat on in the winter, but it was also deathly hot during the summer. We had to leave almost every night because we couldn't stand it.

The staff is mostly ditzy or lazy, I couldn't tell which. The exception to that is Shannon, who we always had good service from. There is practically never anyone in the office during the established hours, so it's difficult to talk to them or pick up packages. We had trouble with them from the start: they never switched our electric bill over, so PSE never sent us a bill and we didn't find out until they left a door hanger that our power would be shut off if we didn't pay over $150 in three days. (We actually owed about $30 from the one month we'd been there.) The staff did fix the mistake, though.

They have a pet service, but we only used it once because our cats were traumatized when we got home. The girl doing it showed up the day after we got home because she couldn't remember when we got back, and she had her kids with her, running around the halls. She proceeded to tell me that my cats must not like each other because one of them "was really mad about something." There was also a bag of dry food completely gone, when there should have been plenty left over. I wouldn't trust them again, we just had a friend come.

We paid $50 for a parking space, but the visitor parking sucks. If you have company regularly I wouldn't recommend living here.

Another thing that really bothered me was that they show your apartment before you move out. So you're trying to pack up all your stuff and move, and they're bringing random strangers in to see the place all a mess.

When we left we got about 25% of the $400 refundable portion of our deposit. Most of the charges were for "cleaning," despite the fact that we left the place much cleaner than when we moved into it.

I was initially attracted by the security features, but they really don't do much. People leave the gates open all the time, and there are sometimes very loud drunks in the halls/elevator/outside the windows on the street.

Overall, the apartments are small and expensive, and the staff certainly doesn't make up for it. We moved after a year to a complex a mile or two away and are much happier (and cooler!) I would not recommend living here to anyone I liked.

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