I used to live in the neighboring Archstone Redmond Campus complex and ended up moving to a private townhouse to live with a member of my family. That quickly ended up not working out, but to get back into Archstone, my rent would have gone up by several hundred dollars a month. So I turned to Ravenswood, which offered more competitive rates for the type of living I needed.

For the most part, it's a decent place to live, though it's nothing really to write home about. The apartment was serviceable, if a bit plain. My particular apartment had a severe problem with mold, which the service staff offered to fix, but did a half-assed job on fixing. I ended up dealing with the mold problem myself, mainly in the form of a really good vacuum cleaner, and I had to have them replace the refrigerator right away.

There's nothing particularly special about the apartment. It's boxy, lacks any molding to make it seem more "homey", and it really does feel like the kind of place I'd stay in temporarily while looking for a better place. There are a number of little things that annoyed me about it:

The apartment includes a washer and dryer, but these units are outside in a closet off the porch. The bathroom fan is always on whenever the light's on, which can make it difficult to hold a conversation. There were several plumbing and electrical problems (loose power sockets, loose drain plug in the bathroom sink, etc), and the bedroom feels lopsided due to the placement of the window (offset close to the closet rather than centered on the wall).

On the other hand, a nice cubby-hole-type area opposite the kitchen made the perfect location for my computer desk, and I was pleased that the complex allowed cats - I adopted two of them during my stay.

Parking is difficult for non-residents. A $25/month fee accompanies each covered parking space, and so long as you're willing to pay that, you should always be able to park. (I had other residents and guests using my spots without my permission on occasion.) But if you don't pay that fee or you have guests over, good luck finding a spot - the lot fills up quick. I ended up paying for two spots so my girlfriend could have a convenient place to park as well.

Dealing with my neighbors became more and more annoying throughout my stay. At first, I didn't mind the occasional noise so much, but as time went on, I had progressively noisier neighbors (several different sets) move in to the apartment above me. Lots of thumping, stomping and banging from upstairs. Another neighbor sharing a wall with my bedroom had an alarm clock that would go off incessantly at night. And a next-door neighbor tended to smoke in his bathroom, which would cause the tobacco smell to enter my apartment, making the whole place quite unpleasant to live in, and probably rather unhealthy, too.

The staff at the rental office were friendly and professional, though not entirely helpful. Also, I discovered that the complex's original management (as of when I moved in) had not updated my records as I asked them to. Despite the mold and the numerous maintenance and cleanliness issues I informed them about when I moved in, they did not mark any of this down on my move-in sheet. Thus, the new management charged me to clean up those issues when I moved out, and I was unable to do anything about it.

The service staff seemed to delight in doing just the bare minimum to get their jobs done. For example: My dryer broke several times in the year I lived there. The first time I had maintenance out to look at it, they left a hand-written note on the lid of my box of fabric softener telling me I had to "clean the lint trap before each load" - even though my problem was not related to the lint trap at all.

Also, their initial attempts to deal with the mold were nothing more than to spray air freshener all around the place. (The fresh smell lasted for about three hours.) I was very disappointed with the service staff here.

Overall, I do not recommend Ravenswood - not until they get their act together and improve the condition and quality of the apartments. They have made progress in improving their service staff, but overall I was unhappy with my experience there. The Ravenswood apartments make a decent temporary living space, especially if you work at Microsoft (it's just down the street), but you can definitely find much better places to call home.

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