First off, I'm going to try and spell check and make sure everything is correct in this statement. I know of nothing worse than reading a bad review with grammatical and spelling errors. It kind of takes away from the believability of it all.

Anyways, I moved into Ravenswood in May of 2002 with 2 other roommates. We have stayed here for 4 years (throughout college). My roommates and I are moving out at the end of April ('06).

I thought I would just break everything down into a list of pros and cons while we were living here.

Cons:
1) For me, parking was an issue so I got a covered parking spot so I wouldn't have to deal with the hassle of finding a place to park. Lots of people park on the sides of the roads making it impossible for more than one car to fit through. I talked to my roommate who has a car as well, and for him, the whole situation didn't really bother him so he wouldn't list it as a con.

2) Noise. As stated in other reviews, the walls are pretty thin. It was not hard to hear conversations going on in other areas of the apartment even with bedroom doors closed. The people living above us seemed to sound like they were always stomping even though they were probably casually walking around.

3) Mold did grow on things like window sills, and outside the sliding glass door that leads to the patio and washer/dryer, but I don't think we really took many preventative measures against it. We probably should have cleaned it every month or so.

4) Grounds. As far as the actual complex, Ravenswood is pretty dull. We have a nice view of a small little hill with a tree on it from our living room window, but elsewhere, the complex is filled to the brim with buildings and there isn't much to look at. Wednesdays are grounds keeping days, which means very loud lawnmowers early in the morning outside of your bedroom windows.

5) Staff. To quote one of my roommates regarding the office staff, "I feel like they are always talking down to me". I asked him what he meant by that, like if he had any specific experiences, but he just said that whenever he has gone in he just feels like he's being talked down to. As for me, I would kind of have to agree and that they seem to be a little confrontational.

6) Rent Increase. As stated above, we have lived here for 4 years and our rent has never changed. Only until this year did they decide to increase our rent by approx $145. This seemed like a rather large jump, and when we went into the office to see if we could keep our rent the same since we have been good tenants, and have been here for a decent amount of time, they just told us that the market was changing and these were the changes no exceptions.

Pros:
1) Washer/Dryer Outside. So, a lot of people complain about this. We actually saw this as positive. The reason being, we were able to have the ability of doing laundry late at night without bothering other roommates. If the washer/dryer was in-unit, it most definitely would have been a much noisier place to live. I saw in one review, someone complained about being bitten by bugs in the summer time while doing their laundry, I can't say that this has happened to me. Your experience may vary I guess.

2) Maintenance Staff Responsive. While we had a couple of water incidents throughout the 4 years, every time we needed to have maintenance done, they always responded promptly.

3) Spacious Units. Since the washer and dryer are outside, that leaves some extra space for living area in the apartments. The living room area was more than enough to accommodate 2 people with computer desks as well as have an eating area and a television area. The bedrooms were also spacious.

4) Air Conditioning. Let us not overlook this important commodity. Many would argue that air conditioning is not necessary in Washington (most places don't have it), but the last 2 summers have been pretty hot and the air-conditioning was definitely a nice thing to have.

5) Location. One of my roommates does not have a car, so he found that the location for the public bus system was very nice. There is a pickup location right at the entrance to the complex so that made things really easy for him. Also, grocery stores, shopping centers and gas stations are not very far away.

6) Price. One of the reasons we are moving out is because our rent is getting hiked up. But until that point we were paying $1000 for a 1000 sq. ft. apartment and we thought that was a fair price.

7) Place to Live. We needed a place to live for school. Our school (DigiPen) requires students to live off campus so we really needed a place that was fairly close to school. It was about 15 minutes walking to get to school. Neither me nor my roommates had experience living in an apartment, so this was our first time and had nothing to compare against.

That about sums up our experience with Ravenswood, I hope it helps.

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