Gilman Square

Me and Fiancé had a great experience living at Gilman Square for a short span of time. The entire staff was helpful and friendly and especially RAMAYA. She is simply awesome and great with people. She made our stay perfect, moving from california we were concerned what the condition of the apartment would be. But as she had promised it had new floors, new carpet, new counter, new sink, new paint. I was glad that everything was very nicely done and any other help that we needed, we had there maintenance guys taking care of it.
I had a brief chance to work with Kristina as well and she was very helpful as well.
I would definitely recommend this place. They set up high standards in customer service.

BEWARE BEWARE BEWARE! What I did not know when I wrote the review of our happy home is that we were slowly dying of MOLD SICKNESS! The management and maintenance team is dishonest, negligent and makes no good faith effort to own their mistakes and faults. Not just the onsite team — the entire group right on up to Sr, Management — has no integrity whatsoever.
I will be updating this post with a timeline and pics.
We fled toxic mold in our home April 2015.
The bottom line is we lost everything we owned, our health is compromised and Gilman Square/​Madrona Ridge/​KCHA did nothing to acknowledge their poor maintenance practices ruined our lives.
Unit # L-​104 should be re-​certified by an outside, unbiased party before any other family moves in.
Never believe one word these liars may tell you. Better yet — DO NOT RISK YOUR HEALTH LIVING HERE.
Rather than repair my unit — they «evicted» me — even though we had to stay at a hotel for our safety.
We went to court for the bogus eviction. It was dismissed, because it was not a valid claim. They were digging for dollars. My dollars. Even though my 11yo Son and I are sick and lost all we had.
Better yet — after court dismissed the bogus eviction — they are still demanding money from me.
Also beware your renters insurance most likely does not cover mold. I was covered for $ 50k contents. We received $ 1500 for our contents.
What their negligence did to my family is real, yet they treat it like a huge joke.
I strongly recommend you do not risk your possessions and health by considering this place as a home.
Pics will follow soon…

Oh yeah, I was really interested in moving here (I am moving from out of state) but for the past week and a half, I can’t get a hold of anybody. The office staff has not ONCE answered the phone, or returned my message I left last week. Ridiculous!

I met Liza through the Gilman Square Apartments, where Liza serves as the leasing agent. Prior to Liza joining the team, the property management was out of control, and super unorganized. Liza stepped in and cleaned house. She is super organized, detail oriented, and has the attention to detail that is required in this role. Liza is a perfect example of belieing in customer service. She goes above and beyond to ensure everything runs smoothly. YOU are amazing! Gilman Square is lucky to have you!
Thank you again for making my life, as well as other tenants’ lives easier.

As a potential renter I can’t speak on experience of living in this community but my time spent working with Liza was outstanding. She was extremely helpful and showed compassion in regards to our situation. We are excited to move to Issaquah and hope that we will find ourselves in the Gilman Square community. ‘

I wanted to leave this review before i decide on a new apartment since i was really happy with what i saw when i visited Gilman square. The manager Liza is extremely friendly and talkative, the grounds were clean and very big and the 2 apartment units i was shown were lovely. I saw minor problems with them like the plugs in the walls coming lose and just because their appearance was old and yellow, i really loved the layout of the remodeled units. I saw myself living there. The price is kind of high for a bedroom of that size and the master bedroom is too small, not to mention how low the tub is in one of the units. Yikes! But overall this is one of the candidates i would pick to move into but i haven’t made up my mind yet. Also they are pet friendly which is a bonus since many places charge you so much for pets or won’t even allow it. So ⁴⁄₅ stars from a potential renter!

I am writing this so any potential renters know what they’re in for should they choose to move here. We have had frustrating after frustrating experience with this place. Let me start from the beginning.
We moved there in the spring of 2012. We moved from out of state and had family tour the apartment for us since we couldn’t be there in person. My brother specifically asked if they were being showed an actual apartment or a model. He was told that they were looking at an actual apartment. It was really nice looking and we saw the pictures and decided this seemed like a nice place for our family to live.
I should have known from the beginning that this would be a nightmare of a place to deal with. We were constantly being told that the apartments were being rented out and that if we wanted to ensure we have an apartment we needed to place a hold. So we sent them the money along with our deposits expecting that to be enough. Here’s the thing, it only holds the apartment for two weeks. So, since we were still out of state and since we were afraid of losing an apartment we had to pay for a vacant apartment for two weeks. We were told that my brother could pick up a key anytime. He stopped by no less than three or four times and the office was always closed. He ended up not picking up the key until the day before I arrived. So they got half a months rent from us and no one had a key until the day before. I have brought this up later on and was met with a shoulder shrug.
When I walked into my apartment for the first time I was disappointed. The carpet looked like it had been there since the 70’s and had the faintest smell of cat urine. I walked into the bathroom and the caulking was just about all gone. The floor creaked from obvious water damage and the toilet tank always had condensation. It also was always humid. I’m from the South, so humidity is something I’m familiar with. The cabinets were crooked, drawer fronts weren’t attached properly, and the screws on the bedroom doors were stripped and I couldn’t close the door all the way. The closet doors all stuck and within a couple of months the hardware fell off. All this in what we had been told was a «fully renovated apartment.»
We showed all of this to the maintenance man and all that was fixed was the caulking in the tub. Which once again peeled off in a week.
We chose to renew our lease because, frankly, we didn’t have the drive to move after only a year.
They raised our rate $ 75 and changed the way they billed their water, trash & sewer. All after we had signed our lease.
The apartments were built poorly and it sounded like a person was throwing weights around upstairs.
Then there’s the staff. Perhaps Katie doesn’t realize how she comes across, but my husband and I would cringe when it came to having to deal with her. She would bounce back and forth from being super friendly to condescending sometimes unapproachable to just plain rude.
They have a three day grace period for rent. Which is basically unheard of anywhere. We are a single income family and like clockwork my husband would get paid 2 or 3 days after the final day. I called one time to explain that we would be late because we didn’t get paid until the 5^th and was told «Well perhaps you need to borrow the money or you need to get a part time job.» Yep.
They also do a walk through of the apartment annuallI get why they do it, but it still feels intrusive. Every time I would point out all the things that were wrong and needed to be fixed. It hardly ever got taken care of. The carpeting started coming apart in three areas. Those areas were covered at all times and when I pointed it out (after my poor mother in law had her foot pierced by the tack board) I was told that the carpet would have to be replaced by a professional because it was damaged. It never was. Our fridge and our freezer leaked out cold air because of the seals and it was never fixed either. And the doors had a nice breeze come through it since the weather stripping was so old it was pretty much nonexistent.
We started looking for a new place last November and I am happy we are in our new place. We turned in our notice that we would be moving out and decided to get the apartment professionally cleaned. My husband mentioned this to Katie and she informed us that regardless of the fact we had it cleaned we would still be charged a cleaning fee. Great.
Also the apartments now run at over $ 1300 a month. Way, way over priced. Especially since everything they use is so cheap. I would never recommend this place to anyone. They are awful apartments with an awful staff.

Our roof leaked. The bath tub caulking kept peeling off. Both of these issues were reported to the service person and after several visits to «fix» these the roof still leaks and the bath tub caulking still peels off. There is paint all over the moldings, wall plugs, and light switches (no tape is used when repainting). Poorly planned parking maintance caused half of the apartment complex to park out on the street for three days creating a difficult parking situation. Their «online payment» system is a joke that has never worked. They lost my rent check once and only way I caught it was by checking my account and seeing that the rent was never withdrawn (they did not call me to notify me). Some of the girls at the leasing office have no customer service skills whatsoever. One in particular is quick to blame you for whatever is wrong with your apartment. Went in to discuss the leaking and caulking issues with the apartment and was pretty much blamed for everything because I had approached the service person for help instead of submitting a service request using their hotline. Does it really matter? The service person came over, tried to fix the issues, and the issues are still there. What difference would it have made if I had submitted the request using your hotline? But the last straw was when they asked us to pay 10% more a month on a new one year lease renewal. Asked them to try to meet us halfway and they declined to even knock a few bucks off. Basically, they are not one bit flexible. None of our neighbors lasted one year at this place, you’d think they’d show us some appreciation. I’d rather pay 10% more at a nicer place. We are moving out as soon as we find a new place. DO NOT MOVE IN HERE. You will regret it.