Review History for anonymous

Columbia Court & Berkeley Court


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anonymous

Resident

6/9/2012

I've been living here for my last two years of my UCI career, and I've had a very pleasant experience. I lived in a single floor two bedroom, two bathroom place with 3 other roommates - rent was $1805 our first year, and then they raised it to $1895 our second year (sucked, but was a lot less than the newly hiked rate for new renters). I believe they're increasing it every year along with tuition at UCI, but oh well. No utilities are included, water/trash was always about $40ish, electricity could be from $20-40 depending on usage. Renters insurance is required but you can use their contracted one, about $4 a month and you can cancel at any time I think. Internet is cable, Cox is the main provider but they might allow other companies. This will be long but I personally love thorough reviews, so maybe this will help some people! The apartment: (ours is an unrenovated one but will be renovated upon moveout, so all appliances and fixtures will be upgraded) Pros: Nicely sized rooms, rugs are fine (pale brown white color), light fixtures are fine, bathrooms/sinks okay - our specific apartment had extremely responsive hot/cold water settings which I liked, but I know friends elsewhere in Berkeley that have horrible and unresponsive water settings. Not sure why. COMES WITH FRIDGE! Oven, stove (electric), microwave all work well. Kitchen and bathroom lights are nice and bright, got alright sun - I know others get better or worse. All maintenance interactions have been really nice and fast, quality work and is always done within at least two days. Haven't really had to talk to management (which is good), but they're very prompt about leaving community-wide letters in the door about upcoming renovations (parking lot, etc), rent reminders, etc. They have a cool community event calendar, they have lots of food/gathering type things. They'll text or email you those regularly, I don't mind. Can pay rent online! Drive by night security that is generally really prompt when parties get crazy (good and bad maybe?) Non-master bedroom has a fully mirrored sliding door set. Heating/AC was always very responsive and comfortable. You're allowed to nail things into the walls too, so no restrictions there. There is one free lockout save, then afterwards they charge you for locking yourself out. Cons: No lights in the bedrooms - bring your own! One rather dim track light in the dining area but nothing in the main living area. Make sure you get lots of lamps. Only ONE mail box key, which sucks if you have roommates - we made a special wall spot for it. Rug stains like nothing else. Sinks and drains can plug, but just keep a hair catcher and you should be fine. Counters will chip easily and stain easily but they will be replacing those with faux marble after we leave, I think. I was in the master bedroom, which had a walk in closet with a stupid door which we took off because it would hit the bathroom door (both were in a corner). All balconies are small and rather useless, they will send you a notice if they think you have "trash" (we had storage boxes there for about 2 days and they gave us a letter...we were on the second floor, we can use a balcony for storage if we want!). Management staff changes a lot, so it's difficult to get consistent answers from them about things - they've always been very professional, though. Amenities: Pool and jacuzzi - pool can get leafy, but they try to clean it. Bad tree placement really. Jacuzzi is VERY hot though, too hot most of the time. Pool can be really cold, I don't think it's heated. Very nice clubhouse (pool table, billiards, nice TVs, mini kitchen for gatherings). They let anyone come in there though so sometimes random huge church gatherings happen and they all cram into the pool area and are quite loud (singing). Bad if you are trying to do your laundry. Good thing about the Irvine Apartments is that your magnetic key is good for ANY of them (Columbia, Dartmouth, Stanford, etc!) so you can go into any of the amenities and pools and laundry sites in any of them. There are plenty of laundry rooms, but there is only one card loader and it's debit/credit card only. Washing/drying is about $3 overall, it's card operated. :/ Parking: You get one covered space, and one permit for first come first serve parking. It's usually not bad finding a spot, especially since they've begun really cracking down on UCI parkers and people with fake permits (which one of my roommates was unfortunately towed for, but we tried...). Very well lit areas overall. I don't believe there's ever been a break in/stealing, but who knows. I always felt fairly safe. Noise: Sometimes there's loud parties, but it's a college community! Neighbors can be loud, but it's never been unbearable. You can hear a little creaking from upstairs, and the bathrooms can echo weirdly if they're loud - it's not bad though. They have awful leaf blowers early in the morning though. Keep your windows closed if you're sleeping late! The rooms themselves are fairly well sound proofed though. Grounds: Okay. Everything's a rather icky shade of tan/brown, but I could really care less. There's some trees and bushes and a few flowers but nothing too fancy. They took out a lot of nice big trees right after I moved in, but I think they were very messy. No trees in the parking lots any more though, so less shade for the uncovered spots. I like lots of trees so this disappointed me, but there's saplings growing. It's not pretty but it's not terrible. I hope this helps someone. I put a few pictures I took when I moved in, too. Best of luck to future renters here!!!

Review 3 out of 21

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