I moved into Tamaron Ranch in the spring of 2007 as it was the cheapest place in the area I could find next to a commuter bus route (I work in Seattle.) During the tour, the grounds seemed fairly clean and quiet. The demo apartment smelled a little musty, but this *is* the Pacific Northwest so I figured it was just the disuse over the last month or two that caused this. I signed a 6 month lease at about $650.00 a month, and moved in.

I quickly came to realize that I should have taken my parent's advice and driven around the complex at night before I signed the lease. There are always shabby and unclean people walking behind our building late at night staring into the bedroom window, and children running wild and unsupervised doing the same in the daylight. I don't like to have my bedroom window open at night due to the risk of prowlers, but I cannot keep it closed due to the severe mold issues in the apartment (which I will get into later.) There are constantly people smoking outside our front and back windows with absolutely no respect for the fact that we are non-smokers, even after repeated attempts at speaking with them and management. Again, I can't just close the windows due to the mold.

The noise from the apartments surrounding mine is pretty low and considerate, but this is due to the fact that chance dealt me some very nice neighbors. Elsewhere, the noise is ridiculous - from Mariachi Bass CONSTANTLY thumping from a pickup truck at 4:30 in the morning to children screeching like Banshees all weekend long literally 5 feet from our windows, the noise is an issue the management has obviously decided is not a concern to them as it has been brought up many times by myself with no apparent results.

The children in the complex run wild Lord of the Flies style; the parents in and around my building seem to excel in completely ignoring how their children behave or even where they are half the time. Screeching for no good reason, completely stripping the shrubbery, digging holes in the grass, crashing bicycles into your car 5 times a day in the Summer, throwing mud against your windows/doors and ding-dong-ditch (knocking on your door and running away quickly multiple times a day) are all part of the exhilaration you will experience while dealing with these children. The parents are not very responsive to the repeated attempts of the management and myself to get them to control their offspring. My neighbors' children are all awesome, but sadly they are the exception to the Tamaron Ranch rule.

Luckily we haven't had to call the police or security at any point during our stay here (*knock on wood*), but there have been multiple drug busts in the parking lot, a murder in a moving vehicle about 30 yards from my bedroom window and many screaming fistfights in the street that have had to be separated via police action.

The apartment management has seen some turnover since I initially moved in, but they've always been friendly enough. My main issue with the management and maintenance staff is the response times. They seem to make a lot of assurances they have no intention of holding to. It's taken months to get appliances fixed. When we call we always get a sense of "this is a number one priority to us, you are a special tenant!" which quickly descends into three weeks to get a refrigerator working. My water bill kept inflating as maintenance issues such as a busted toilet tank flapper and leaky faucets went unfixed, so I got fed up and fixed the issues myself after months of waiting. I bet if I present Tamaron Ranch management with an invoice for my services and the difference in my PUD / water bill they would flat out refuse to even entertain the thought of compensating me.

After my first least was up, the management raised the rent on my one bedroom / one bath apartment to $700 per month, apparently under the guise of "rising rent in the local area", but I went with it and signed for another 6 months. This was my biggest mistake. Seattle winters in Tamaron Ranch mean SEVERE AND EXPENSIVE MOLD PROBLEMS. I cannot underscore this enough. If you live in Tamaron Ranch apartments, you *will* have mold problems and you *will* be responsible for them, financially and labor-wise. This is true for me and anyone I've talked to about it since that fateful November.

The apartments have very poor ventilation and trap moisture like nothing else. The bathroom ceiling vent is nearly useless, and running it doesn't help cut the moisture. We ended up having to buy several box fans to put in the windows just to get enough airflow through the building to prevent a musty smell and mold growth from happening. Even with this however, you won't want the windows open on a 15 degree night. I guarantee after one night of closed windows you will have black mold growth all over the sill. It's nearly impossible to keep closed cupboards dry, so we have two Damp Check buckets in EVERY SINGLE cabinet we need to keep closed and have to replace them every two weeks.

In fact, we run through about 250 dollars of Damp Check chemicals every 4 months. Cleaning the mold is straightforward bleach, water and elbow grease, but I don't enjoy living in an apartment that I believe is infested with black mold in all the walls.

After my mold horrors, the time to renew the lease came up, but unfortunately I ran into some medical issues that rendered it impossible to move due to money being tight. Of course, in this time of need Tamaron Ranch came through for me! They offered a MINIMUM 12 month lease at $800.00 unless I wanted to pay month-by-month at $860.00 per month. I really couldn't afford to move into a new apartment at this time if they weren't going to give me my security deposit back due to the mold issues, so I decided not to chance it and just signed the 12 month.

Once my 12 months is up I am moving from this place. It really won't be that much more expensive in the long run, since I'll save 750 bucks a year just on Damp Check alone!

I've lived in some bad apartments, but my combined experiences here make this the absolute worst I have experienced.

User Responses
From: Anonymous	Date: 12/29/2008
I Agree wait till you hear my story on this place.
From: Anonymous	Date: 01/24/2009
I have lived here now for 1.5 years and am looking to move as well. My biggest issue is definately the kids. I completely agree with the comments above. They are very loud and very vulgar. They run in groups of 4-8 kids ranging in ages from 10 to 15 and are out as late as 1:00 - 2:00 a.m. walking around the complex talking, laughing and screaming. I have no idea what type of parents would allow children of this age to roam with no supervision.
From: Anonymous	Date: 11/07/2009
I definitely agree. I saw a child on the roof of the mailbox area once, playing up there. I was about to notify the management, but remembered that they don't care, so I didn't bother. My car got randomly keyed while here, too. I never had any personal issues with neighbors, never rally talked to any, even. But randomly, someone (probably a child) scratched my car up all nice. It'll be approx $500 to get rid of the scratch. Nice huh?

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