Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My apartment is fine so far. It's the other people who I have spoken to who are having problems. The area is fine, it has everything I need. I just can't afford a social/nightlife right now anyways. Starting over from scratch with no money in the bank sucks. Maybe that's why I don't like the area or what I am doing career wise so far. I hate starting new jobs. I am kicking myself in the butt for leaving my first career now. I didn't realize how good I had it. Though it was in NJ in a pretty expensive area. I will just be miserable for the next couple years until I get up to a GS-11 salary grade and can actually have a little disposable income. Though I will need to start saving asap so I can buy a home within the next 8 to 10 yrs before prices jump up again too high.
Thanks for the responce, Kaillus. I think when I eventually do move out there I'll need to spend a few days cruising around town and checking out the best apartment complexes. A part of me wants to get a really nice and luxurious place for $1400-1500, but my gut is telling me to stay around $1200 and put the extra towards paying off my student loans faster.
You mentioned the heat in your place. 73F doesn't sound too bad, a little on the cool side actually. How is the A/C in your apartment? And what do your utility bills look like so far? Thanks again.
No, I did not. The prices change on a regular basis. The renovated models just became available that weekend, so I just happened to get lucky. After talking to some of the other people living here. Maintenance appears to be a problem. I am praying that I don't have any major problems over the next 1 or 2 years, however long I am here. I think I am stuck here for 2 years if I decide to keep my current job and go up a couple pay grades to afford a place closer to reduce my commute time. It's an hour now. The premium rooms are only on the top 2 floors. I am on the 2nd floor, and the higher up you go, the hotter the rooms get during the day. Being on the 2nd floor, my apartment had only gotten up to 73 degs F during the day. The kitchens are crazy tiny, but I have not been doing much cooking this time around, and I was able to get a couple stand along cabinets from my sister to hold all the other kitchen stuff that would not fit. You only get 1 drawer, it's so annoying. Apartments are all over prices in the DC area. I don't know how long I am going to be able to stand living here. I thought it would be cool to live in work in a big metro area, but I am finding out that this small town boy should have stayed back in the small town. Though the problem with that is finding a decent job. I need to suck it up for 2 to 3 yrs to get some experience under my belt before I look to relocate again. Good luck.
My kitchen was crazy tiny too. We always called it the airplane kitchenette because it reminded me of those rooms on airplanes stewardesses stow meals. I always assumed it was because I had an 0 bedroom efficiency. You mean they are all like that?
I never had a problem with maintenance, but then again this was 5 years ago.
Riverside apartments suck. They honestly have the worst people over there. Once they get you in they are pretty much non-responsive to your concerns. Also, the neighborhood is a little bit on the sketchy side. There is a reason it is a gated community with a security gaurd that stands outside by the gate. My wife and I don't feel safe walking around in the evenings. Their prices changes every day, but what they don't tell you is that your rent will probably go way up the next year at renewal time. They come up with your renewal rates by averaging the last 12 weeks of rents to come up with your "average" renewal rate. So, you may have come in on a good week when they weren't selling a lot of apartments so the rents were adjusted to be low. But, watch out the next year. The week that they rented 19 apartments in one weekend is probably because they were priced too high to begin with so they had to make an adjustment downward. Great if you're only going to be there for one year. We got our renewal rate and it was $300 more than what we are currently paying, so we decided to move.We had been asking what our renewal rate would be for months, then they finally spring it on us just a few weeks before we have to give notice. They are pretty crafty. Luckily we had been pricing the area and found a lot of good deals in much safer neighborhoods. I would recommend Reserve at Eisenhower & Ridgeleigh at Van Dorn. They were both pretty close to the metro, yet they both offered shuttle service. We liked both but we are probably going to go with the Ridgeleigh at Van Dorn. The Ridgeleigh has been doing some renovations. Like Riverside, they had several cosmetic styles for their apartments. We really liked how safe the neighborhood felt.
Last edited by Mahalo-Aloha; 10-17-2008 at 07:23 PM..
Looks like Riverside Apartments at Cameron Run has recently opened which is probably why you can't find any submitted reviews. There's Riverside Apartments in the Huntington section of Alexandria, but it has a lot of negative reviews and something of a not so good reputation.
Sorry I can't help you but this forum is a good place to start...
Riverside at Cameron Run and Riverside at Huntington section of Alexandria are the same. I think they were recently bought by another company so the slight name change, but same bad reputation.
Riverside apartments suck. They honestly have the worst people over there. Once they get you in they are pretty much non-responsive to your concerns. Also, the neighborhood is a little bit on the sketchy side. There is a reason it is a gated community with a security gaurd that stands outside by the gate. My wife and I don't feel safe walking around in the evenings. Their prices changes every day, but what they don't tell you is that your rent will probably go way up the next year at renewal time. They come up with your renewal rates by averaging the last 12 weeks of rents to come up with your "average" renewal rate. So, you may have come in on a good week when they weren't selling a lot of apartments so the rents were adjusted to be low. But, watch out the next year. The week that they rented 19 apartments in one weekend is probably because they were priced too high to begin with so they had to make an adjustment downward. Great if you're only going to be there for one year. We got our renewal rate and it was $300 more than what we are currently paying, so we decided to move.We had been asking what our renewal rate would be for months, then they finally spring it on us just a few weeks before we have to give notice. They are pretty crafty. Luckily we had been pricing the area and found a lot of good deals in much safer neighborhoods. I would recommend Reserve at Eisenhower & Ridgeleigh at Van Dorn. They were both pretty close to the metro, yet they both offered shuttle service. We liked both but we are probably going to go with the Ridgeleigh at Van Dorn. The Ridgeleigh has been doing some renovations. Like Riverside, they had several cosmetic styles for their apartments. We really liked how safe the neighborhood felt.
I was afraid of the jacked up renewal rate scam with this place. I got what I thought was a very good deal when I moved in, and I am afraid to see what it will be when I am up for renewal.
After being here for like 6 months now, I would like to add that the maintenance is very unresponsive. Tower 1 had major water damage from someone breaking a sprinkler head with their couch when moving in. Very poor design of the location, I almost hit it too when I was moving in. Thank goodness they removed them all now. My apt had very little water damage on one of the interior walls, and when I asked what sections they were going to replace, no one could or would answer me after 3 attempts.
I have been saving up money and will start looking for a new place come this spring. MY lease is up end of May, and I fully expect them to jack up my rent for next year. I hate moving though, its going to suck.
Oh, a comment on the free shuttle. In the morning they run a big and small shuttle. The big one starts at tower 3, then moves to tower 2, then finally to tower 1. By the time it gets to tower 1 there are only a few seats left. This is at around the 7 and 7:20 AM pickup times. Many from tower 1 have to wait for the smaller shuttle that is supposed to run 5 mins behind now, but seems a lot faster though.
When me and hubby were checking Riverside out we were so close to rent there but thank god we thought of looking for reviews and according to apartmentguide or some other renting wesite they had 83% people NOT recommending to move in there. Interesting that there is no reviews there any more....
My experience is 10 years old, but if there are no longer reviews on the apartment ratings, I think it should be noted. Whatever you do, do not rent unseen. We were told that they only had 5pm check-in times and that we could not see the place first. When we got upstairs, there was no balcony! It had been replaced with cardboard! I ran downstairs as quickly as I could to complain, but they had locked up and left for the rest of the weekend. We moved in anyway and had a terrible experience the entire time (watch out for the doors on the balcony; I was locked out on our top floor balcony by the self-locking doors-once our balcony was finally restored-during a hurricane). My review on apartmentratings detailed many more horrible things that occurred, but as I mentioned, it is about 10 years old. I still get worked up every time I think of it though.
This is where I live. Yaaaay! Anyway, if you're a size man (or woman), I'd heartily endorse Riverside. Dang, do you get a lot of size for the buck here (especially considering that we're now - thanks to the cool new pedestrian/cyclist cut-through - like a ten-minute walk from Old Town). Security in the parking lot kingdom (yeah, it's that big) isn't too great, but my roomie has a junker car the doors of which don't even lock, and I have no car and a very punk-rock old mountain bike, so we're ok on that front. Your actual apartment is not at all likely to be broken into, though. I think there were a few credit cards stolen last year, but the culprit ended up being an employee (they long ago fired) and/or his friend(s). (Gee, I bet that makes you feel better!) If you have a west-facing apartment, it will heat up like an oven in the late afternoon. I would also recommend thoroughly cleaning your cabinets before you move your stuff into them to flush out the hidden roachy bits. (If you're very clean, you probably won't actually have a problem with live roaches.) The Huntington neighborhood (basically, the area between Riverside and the Huntington metro) is a dump, but there's a shuttle to whisk you through there during morning and afternoon communiting hours. The property on the whole is maintained fairly well, and maintenance is pretty responsive to requests.
So, in short, pros: HUGE apartments for price; proximity to Old Town
Cons: it's an indifferently-maintained 1970 highrise, duh (and forget the renovated units - they're WAY too expensive for the area); sorta-sketchy neighborhood
Feel free to DM me if you have any more questions.
This is where I live. Yaaaay! Anyway, if you're a size man (or woman), I'd heartily endorse Riverside. Dang, do you get a lot of size for the buck here (especially considering that we're now - thanks to the cool new pedestrian/cyclist cut-through - like a ten-minute walk from Old Town). Security in the parking lot kingdom (yeah, it's that big) isn't too great, but my roomie has a junker car the doors of which don't even lock, and I have no car and a very punk-rock old mountain bike, so we're ok on that front. Your actual apartment is not at all likely to be broken into, though. I think there were a few credit cards stolen last year, but the culprit ended up being an employee (they long ago fired) and/or his friend(s). (Gee, I bet that makes you feel better!) If you have a west-facing apartment, it will heat up like an oven in the late afternoon. I would also recommend thoroughly cleaning your cabinets before you move your stuff into them to flush out the hidden roachy bits. (If you're very clean, you probably won't actually have a problem with live roaches.) The Huntington neighborhood (basically, the area between Riverside and the Huntington metro) is a dump, but there's a shuttle to whisk you through there during morning and afternoon communiting hours. The property on the whole is maintained fairly well, and maintenance is pretty responsive to requests.
So, in short, pros: HUGE apartments for price; proximity to Old Town
Cons: it's an indifferently-maintained 1970 highrise, duh (and forget the renovated units - they're WAY too expensive for the area); sorta-sketchy neighborhood
Feel free to DM me if you have any more questions.
Where does the trail spit you out in Old Town?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
