The Good: North Bend can be pretty when the weather is good, the commute to Bellevue or Seattle is tolerable, the apartments look nice, the management staff are nice, and the maintenance crew do a decent job on upkeep.

The Bad: The construction of the units is very shoddy. Floors are not level, have bumps or rise at the edges, and are very squeakly. Most walls and window openings are not square, making windows and doors not fit well or impossible to close completely. As others have already said, insulation and noise dampening are poor. It is hard to keep the place warm in the winter (You will actually feel drafts coming in from around the windows, due to the issue I described above.) and noise carries between rooms and units.
Extra parking at the top of the complex, where the units/buildings are most dense, is almost non-existent. As a result, visitors and residents with extra cars park in the driveway, fire lanes, or even directly in-front of other people's units. It is not uncommon to find yourself blocked out of your garage/driveway when trying to leave or coming home.
North Bend seems to have third-world utilities, with the exception of cable services. Electricity, phone, and water/sewer/trash are provided by cooperatives or rural companies. The co-op owned power frequently goes out and stays off for hours at a time, seemingly at random. The other utilities are pretty reliable, but expect $130 power bills during the winter (even if you do not use your heat much), $45 for basic phone per month, and $65 per month for water/sewer. This is about twice what I would expect in a more urban part of King County.
As far as the general community, RCR seems to attract a higher-than-normal amount of Urban Redneck and Upper-Crust White Trash. (Urban Redneck = Drives a big truck with extra lights or a Japanese economy car, lowered, loud, and with fancy accessories. They listen to Eminem in the car, flick cigarettes out the window, and shout "woo-hoo" randomly. Upper-Crust White Trash = Thinks nothing about waxing their Camaro at 7AM on the weekend while blasting Eagles songs on the car stereo, have alcohol-induced fights outside of their unit at 1AM on weekdays, and honks their horn incessantly to get someone to come out to the car or open the garage door instead of getting their fat ass out of the car and walking a few steps.) Unfortunately, one or a few bad neighbor-types seem to outweigh all of the rest of the people that go about their business without causing other people grief.
We have lived here for a year and will break our lease, forfeiting nearly $1500, to get out of here a few months early. I would not recommend this place and would not consider staying, unless costs were reduced and/or the killing (at least severe battering) of obnoxious neighbors was decriminalized.

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