Harvard Square Apartments

I lived here for a year, my boyfriend lived here for 2.
Pros: Pretty good area, close to OSU but not so close that you feel like you’re living on a college campus. We also got to avoid most of the OSU traffic. I felt like the area we lived in was pretty safe. Close to the highway and easy to get to anything you want. Management was always friendly when you talked to them. Free parking. Some reviewers on google plus talked about bugs and rodents, or being woken up by the train — we didn’t have any issues like that.
Cons: The walls are extremely thin and neighbors were sometimes less than polite. For example, over a period of about a month, the person above us used to do who knows what (running on a treadmill?) that completely shook our ceiling and was super loud. I have a video of our ceiling shaking — I really thought it might give out. We called management and to do anything about it, they had to come into our apartment to hear the noises themselves. I’ve never been in a place that did that — most will take your word for it.
Our apartment was usually pretty quiet, but near the end of our lease we had a neighbor move in that we shared a bedroom wall with. He was extremely loud and inconsiderate. It was a nightmare; he would have loud, boisterous conversations up against the wall at 3:30 a.m. that would wake us up, had loud sex, played loud music. I had to sleep with earplugs a lot of the time. Again, to be fair, he wasn’t there for most of the lease, and our neighbor on the other side was quiet and friendly. But if you end up with a rude, loud neighbor, you WILL hear everything they do.
Our apartment was adjacent to the parking lot, so we’d be woken up by people revving their engines, car lights shining into our apartment at all hours of the night, etc. There also wasn’t anything between the parking lot and bedroom/​living room windows, which seemed pretty unsafe. Even a parking curb would have been a good idea.
Some of the things weren’t very nice, and could have easily been fixed/​maintained. For example, there were some plastered tiles near our bathtub that were really uneven and looked pretty bad that could have been fixed in about 5 minutes if someone had cared. Our unit also had a box that appeared to once been used to let people into the apartment, but it wasn’t operational and seemed obsolete. Things that could have been fixed easily if the complex spent a little time, money, and effort just weren’t. The apartment wasn’t in BAD shape, by any means, but I thought it was a little rundown for what we were spending on it.
At one point during the year, we had some weird flooding in our closet. We submitted an online maintenance request and waited… and waited… and then I think we either called or went in. They said that something was going on with the system and they didn’t get any request from us. To their credit, once they knew about it, they did send someone out to fix it.
Our bathroom had mold on the ceiling and, near the end of our lease, a big bubble formed on the wall. It would come and go. I have no idea what it was and I certainly didn’t want to touch it, but it was disconcerting.
I was excited to move into a complex with a pool, but I didn’t really feel like I could use it. Any time I tried to go, there would be a poorly behaved kid running around, yelling and carrying on while his mom got her tan on. Sorry to sound crabby, but that’s not exactly my idea of a relaxing pool experience. Once, we decided to use the grills next to the pool to cook out, and we tried not to watch as a trashy couple proceeded to have sex against the window with the blinds up. Yum, now my lunch is ruined, thanks!
Sometimes people would prop the door open, giving anyone and everyone access to our apartments. Once, we had some people come by to sell magazines for some seemingly illegitimate cause and, when we didn’t buy them, they kind of threatened my boyfriend. Very uncomfortable.
If your neighbors did anything even remotely fragrant, you would smell it. Our hallway oftentimes smelled like Indian food or incense (or «broccoli perfume,» as my boyfriend concluded).
When we were moving out, we cleaned and made sure everything was in pretty pristine condition. I think things were much better than they were when my boyfriend moved in, to be honest. The maintenance guy said we’d get charged $ 10 for every hole left in the wall. Okay, i know we should have tried to patch the holes or at least do the toothpaste trick but we forgot — $ 10 a hole?! There goes at least $ 200, I’m sure!
Overall, NOT as bad as it could be. As I said before, everyone at the office was very nice. The neighborhood was pretty nice and safe, and you were in walking distance of some great restaurants. But as you might imagine, I would not live here again.

Biggest mistake!
The staff doesNOT know what they are doing majority of the time. Maintenance will charge you to fix things. There is constantly construction in the building hallways during the worst hours possible. Overall terrible experience.