Canyon Pointe Apartments
1630 228th St Se, Bothell, WA 98021
425-486-3774  WEBSITE save favorite
AVERAGE RATING
recommended by:
33%

overall rating:
2.4
2.4
2.42 Parking:
3.1
3.09 Maintenance:
2.4
2.42 Construction:
2.7
2.65 Noise:
3.1
3.14 Grounds:
2.6
2.63 Safety:
2.4
2.4 Office Staff:
< | >

Worst Experience I've Had Yet in Renting

From: -Anonymous-
Date posted: 7/13/2007
Years at this apartment: 2006 - 2007
User Response is available. 1 response
 
Hard to know where to start, but have to be fair about it so here goes.

Management: Don't know where to begin. The lady in charge was snappish from the very start and everything -feels- calculated to getting as much money as possible, which was really weird for a place that isn't exactly very luxurious. Oddly enough the majority of the staff were pretty pleasant and receptive, even if they can't always help you. Maintenance was quick and seemed on the ball, but by that time I hardly cared anymore as I had a sinking feeling about the place.

Move Out: I've never been charged a move out fee before that was anything but quite reasonable. I pay the fifty dollars for dusting or a few little things that I can agree got pretty scuffed and scratched. Usually they just shrug and consider the place old or built out of cheap parts. Actually really good friends with a lot of my past landlords. Just this past Winter I totally cleaned a friend's -house- top to bottom and got the landlord to ignore any cleaning costs whatsoever. The landlord said it was the cleanest bachelor place he's ever seen!

These people seem to believe that you can't even touch the walls or else they're going to repaint them and consider it above-and-beyond normal wear and tear. (Which must be a single coat, I figure, of the cheapest white paint possible, based on how easy it picked up stains. I had to wipe down the walls each time I brushed against them, but I guess it wasn't enough.) I have trouble believing the fees because I brought in a rather pricey friend's european steam cleaner to do the walls, windows, fixtures, appliances, tile floors, etc. (I had heard the other horror stories by then and was rather worried about it.) A lot of the stuff looked brand new! Which now makes me want to get one of those cleaners for my own. It took me two entirely full days to clean so I ran out of time to fully steam clean the carpeting. So I can grant them that. But the amount is just idiotic. I don't know how I could possibly live someplace and never touch it. Boo! Bad business!

Quality of Apartment: Decent in a lot of ways. You can tell that it's kind of a veneer over rather badly built places as the flooring underneath the bathroom was already warping, for instance. Not something hugely to complain about, but it's pretty obvious after a while. The landscaping is probably nicer than the units themselves, which must have weird insulation to lose heat and yet maintain moisture no matter what you do. I'm still puzzled by that.

Neighbors: Mostly nice. You get a bunch in certain units that go around drinking and yelling at night, but I guess it's something you get used to in a low-end place like this one, considering the location. I really can't complain though, as aside from the noise nobody's really being bothersome. Guess it was more funny than anything else. You can hear just about everything outside even with your window closed. To the guy who was yelling at his --- lover, uh, you were really easy to hear even to someone on the second floor on the opposite side of the road...

Parking: Fine if you don't mind a brisk 15 minute walk to your apartment if you make the mistake of coming home at the wrong time. Didn't bother me, but it would be a nightmare for anyone who couldn't/didn't like walking, so I'm forced to rate it rather low. The new place I'm at has a vast sea of parking spaces, but the layout lends itself to that better.

Overall, though, I like to rent places to see whether I can recommend them to my workplace. We bring in a lot of coworkers as we're now a rather spread out business (as of being bought out by an out of state consortium), but I'd be utterly ashamed to use this place to house them once the move-out fees and things came in or like other people mentioned that they hassle you on financial things, which seems common in other reviews. I'm not really sure how they plan on running their apartment business, but I guess not enough people (like me) read review sites before moving in. Won't make that mistake again.

To me, running an apartment complex means charging enough rent to mostly pay off the mortgage for about 10 years, at which point the value should have at least doubled (depending on your area). Then you try not to charge much on people's deposits so they have a good feeling leaving and leave you positive feedback instead of angry protests (like this one). Those people spread the word to others (or put it in the roster at their companies) and you slowly increase rates until you have an excellent rating. At that point start making the place fancy and raise the value of the property. Wala, you're profitable, way to go! Then you decide how long you want to hold on to it as by then the rent from your tenants should exceed the mortgage costs. Easy peas. I rent out my own place, anyway. It's a real joy if you follow that tenet.

Avoid it and move on. There's a lot of nicer places in the area, many of which I've stayed at, even if they don't necessarily look nicer on the outside. Remember, if it's got a big, expensive cabana, nice grounds, and stuff like that, well, that probably means they have to pay for it and I guess so will you. I'll pick someplace where I'm not unnerved by the people running it more than the guests, thanks.

Recommended: NO
Overall Rating
2 out of 5
Parking:
1 of 5
Maintenance:
5 of 5
Construction: 2 of 5
Noise:
2 of 5
Grounds: 4 of 5
Safety: 4 of 5
Office Staff:
2 of 5
I'm the author!
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User Responses

From: abodesindia Date: 12/21/2008
The easiest way to rent an apartment is to ask friends and then move into a home of a relative so that there are less hassles in staying in Manish, www.AbodesIndia.com
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