Roberto M.
Yelp
This review comes from the experience of living there for about 3 years, knowing that sooner or later I would move out.
We moved here because it was cheaper than most places and we know the neighborhood. In 2013-2014 we started off our lease paying $850 for a one bedroom, bottom floor apartment (meaning we had a small patio). By the second year lease in 2014-2015 it went up to $885, by the 3rd and final year, 2015-2016 it jumped to $938 a month.
Extra bills: (Services) Riverside Public Utilities is the Electrical and Sewer provider. Though Laurel Heights pays for water, you still get charged for sewer. Which on average was about $50 in the winter/spring and $75 in the summer (including elec). Also $30 every 3 months for trash. Laurel Heights will demand renters insurance ($20 average). Tv & internet is practically controlled by Charter. Unless you are in an area where you can get Dish/Direc or ATT.
Pros & Cons:
Pros:
-Location: It's really close to many things and two major freeways. Though it is next to a very busy Street so that sometimes can be a negative (traffic & noise) especially those firetrucks in the middle of the night.
-Gated community. You need a code to get in, though it's not a guarantee safe option, never had issues with vandalism or breaking in.
-Parking; always easy and convenient and plenty to chose from. Also the option with parking in the street if you lived close to it.
-Clean: Around the complex it was always clean. Grass was kept and trees were trimmed. At night it was well lit up and plenty of lighting. The pool area was always clean and many people enjoyed it.
Cons:
-Laundry Room; They work of a card that you load on a machine inside the office. Which is a major inconvenience if the office is closed and you want to wash and need to re-load the card. Especially on Sundays. The laundry room has it's busy days, and like anywhere else people are really inconsiderate. People would take up 7-8 machines at a time not caring for others. Needing an empty dryer, but people would leave their clothes for hours not caring other people wanted to use it. This was a real pain. 80% of the time we would go to an off-site laundromat.
-In the last year management changed, and you can tell. Prices rising, and quality falling. Once it took a week and a half to get kitchen lights fixed. Had to advise them 3 times. Same thing with closet rod, took like 4 days. Many answers to our questions were "we will get back to you" or "there isn't really nothing we can do". One girl who has been there for some time with old a new management, was always super nice though. Very helpful..the rest meh.
-Neighbors: In the three years that I lived there the majority of neighbors were nice and considerate to others. But there is always that one psycho neighbor who blasted music super late, loud, and no matter how much you complained to the office nothing was really done. Also, inconsiderate animal owners that would not pick up after their animals. Constant cigarette smokers and at least around our building lots of drunken arguing.
-Drugs; it reeked of marijuana smell almost on a weekly basis. The smell would go through the AC vents and the inside of the apartment would smell. Brought this up once, nothing was ever done. Pretty sure our neighbor was a drug dealer since he would have random visits nightly from different people. When he was "kicked out" he parked his beat-up RV in front of the apartments for MONTHS. Clearly was a drug spot. Random people would show up, and the windows were always covered. They connected a "supply" line somewhere to an apartment and lived in the RV for many months. When this was brought up to management, they said they couldn't do anything about it. So for about half a year I had a drug dealing spot 50 ft away from our apartment.
-Random water shut off for hours. It sucked, sometimes in the afternoon between 5pm-7pm. Other times at night at 9pm. Was prob the most annoying thing ever. Only explanation was emergency plumbing due to clogging. It wasn't constantly, but 3 years I lived there it happened 4-5 times.
As you can see, the cons outweigh the pros. It's a good spot if you are going to live there for a year or two. For more than two years it gets annoying. Thankfully we were able to purchase and move out. The new management, is a gamble. The majority of people living there are honest hard working nice people, but a small handful are loud, annoying, inconsiderate people. I had one month to go in my lease, I tried to negotiate with them, they didn't allow it. Wanted me to pay $1500 fee or last month rent even though I wasn't gonna live there anymore. For 3 years I paid my rent on time every time. Was kinda disappointing they didn't want to really work something out. Since they rented out the apartment couple days after I left I will get the difference $ back. Overall, OK place. Not horrible, but not great.