Graduate Gardens

If I could place 0 stars I would. This place is an absolute DUMP. The Management company is ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE. All they care about is getting their money from their tenants. It takes months at some point for them to fix one simple problem. They are also not understanding at all if any type of money issues come out. If you have one or two problems with rent, they’ll immediately throw you out. The complex is mostly international students who will stare at you if you are actually NOT an international student. This place is suppose to be a graduate student apartment complex? YEAH RIGHT. Students will party all night, music blaring. The apartment complex does nothing about it. Even if you think their prices are reasonable, trust me, it is not worth your money. You’ll find much better places off campus that have a better value, a better management system, and a much better place to live

With the University discount, it’s pretty cheap. All utes (+intet) included. While it is fairly close to downtown college park, walking paths are not optimal and who actually wants to go to downtown college park. The metro is ¾ of a mile, about as far as you would want to walk to work each day, perhaps too far for some.
Roaches are a big problem. No matter how much you clean there is always someone in the next apartment who keeps their kitchen as an absolute pig sty and makes a home for them.
Lots of international students here, mostly Chinese who keep to themselves. You would be surprised how many people they sometimes pack into a 2 bedroom. Not a very neighborly atmosphere but that is what some people are looking for.
Southern management does not actually manage things very well. They are always having to redo things, repaving the road after they just repaved it 6 months ago. Installing new windows and then having to go over it again because they got the wrong size. It is moderately annoying.
But like I said, it is cheap.

One word: MOLD.
I lived here from 2007 – 2010, and it went steadily downhill the whole time. Between the constant problems with the hot water, the break-​ins in our parking lot, and the stunning lack of security in the place, the maintenance was terrible. They poked a series of holes in our ceiling for a sprinkler system that took six months to install, requiring us to move our furniture several times and covering everything with dust. They poked a hole in our bathroom ceiling to address a leak, and left a piece of cardboard literally screwed down over the hole for weeks. We were ordered to remove everything from our cabinets for inspection and pest prevention with only 24 hours notice in the middle of midterms on several occasions. We were the last place in the entire town to get plowed during winter storms. But I could have lived with all of this if not for the MOLD.
This place has a hideous, unaddressed MOLD PROBLEM, and from what I understand it has only gotten worse since we left. After the HVAC chiller broke in summer 2009, I could barely breathe in my own room before I discovered toxic black mold growing on a duct high up in my closet. Soon, I realized it was everywhere and getting worse. Mold grew on intert surfaces overnight, and we were constantly spraying, cleaning and disinfecting the entire place. I spent countless hours turning our apartment inside out in an attempt to fight the mold. The ventilation system pumped moisture into our apartment, so much so that we emptied a 16-​liter dehumidifier (bought at our own expense) no less than 3 times each day during summer. I lost hundreds of dollars worth of belongings and this was never addressed or acknowledged by management. They would paint over it (not using mold blocking paint), and painted the grills of the vents silver to hide it, but that’s meaningless (they also never warned us they were about to do this, and covered everything, including our toothbrushes and contact lenses, with a thin coating of silver aerosol paint.) The school told us we would need to take them to court, but we knew we would graduate before we got anywhere. The ventilation system needs to be entirely replaced, but Grad Gardens couldn’t even keep the hot water on, so I doubt they’ve done anything about the mold. It was absolutely ghastly. I moved out and into an even more crowded apartment just so I could stop living somewhere that was literally killing me.
Sharing a bathroom with three strangers felt like heaven compared to Grad Gardens.
Rent at your own risk.

If you’re thinking about living here you’re probably a (prospective) UMD grad student. For UMD grad students – especially students that want a short commute – this is the place. Too bad it isn’t actually a **great**place to live.
Safety-​wise, this area is average for College Park. There seem to be a lot of muggings and car break-​ins in the area, but if you’re smart you can avoid most of it. My friend has lived in Grad Gardens for about 4 years and he has not been the victim of a crime.
Apartment management/​maintenance. This is the worst. Apparently Southern Management (UMD owns the property, Southern manages it) thinks it’s ok to run the property into the ground. For example, humidity in the apartments is not controlled. So, if you live in an apartment that happens to be too dry or too humid, it’s up to you to purchase equipment to deal with it. (We bought a huge dehumidifier for summer after a huge mold problem and a humidifier for winter to keep from getting shocked every time we touch something.) Also, some apartments are laid out in a manner that wastes a lot of space – see your actual unit (not the floor above or below) before you sign the lease if at all possible.
Rodents. We have not had any pest/​rodent problems. Regardless, about every six months we have to clean everything out of our cabinets and closets for the pest exterminators to do their spraying.
Laundry. There are not laundry rooms in every building. Oh no my friend. We have to walk three buildings up the hill to get to the laundry room – and another five buildings or so down the way to get to a laundry room that allows you to put money on your card. Also, the washers and dryers are total crap (dirty, don’t work very well, eat your money, etc.).
Neighborhood. Eh, it’s crappy College Park. You can walk to the bars/​restaurants on Baltimore Ave that the undergrads frequent, but you’d probably be mugged.