Lockside Apartments

I liked living at the Lockside Apartments. Being in Ballard, close to a lot of things, was a lot of fun. I could easily walk to all of the entertainment and nightlife in the area. I was here for just over two years, so I really got to see a lot of Ballard.
The best part about the apartment is that it was so far removed from the main bustle of downtown Ballard. It was always very quiet at night. Neighbors were quiet, outside noises were quiet. I never had a noise complaint (other than when I first moved in and could hear the slight buzz from the generator of 7 – 11 next door).
Additionally, the price was great for the location and size of the apartment. I was paying $ 835/​month for a very large, one-​bedroom apartment. The downside is that this moved up to $ 900 my last couple of months, and they did tell me that the new price was in line with what they were charging new tenants, so word to the wise.
I did have a couple of complaints… at some point during my time living at Lockside, property managers changed over. I’m not sure if property management companies were changed or not, but we had new on-​site managers and the old manager, Rick, was kicked to the curb. This disappointed me because Rick was a really great manager. He was always working on the exterior of the building, keeping things clean and up-​to-​date, and he would fix any maintenance problems immediately. He was also really nice and friendly. He was replaced by Scott and Matt, who, while both very nice, weren’t quite as good as Rick, in my opinion. They were friendly and worked on the building some, but were slower about getting things taken care of than Rick. Nothing that really changed the quality of living at the complex, but enough to notice.
Eventually, I decided to move up further north to be closer to my family and friends. A couple of shady-​ish things happened around the time I moved out. With 15 days left in the month, I tried to give a 20 day notice. Not to move out by the end of the month, but to move out after 20 days. They refused it and required me to stay another full month, which was really frustrating.
Since I had to stay an extra month, I was pretty slow about removing some of my things from my apartment. I moved all the big stuff on one large moving day, but there was plenty that I had to come back for over multiple visits. As I was nearing the end of the last month, I got a call asking me if I could finish moving out ASAP so another tenant could move into my old place. This was on about Monday of the last week and they wanted me out… like immediately… before my final month was up. I still had things there and needed to finish cleaning. On top of that, the request meant that they had showed my apartment WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. Granted, I had very few things left in the apartment, but that is definitely illegal. I was more than annoyed but told them if they gave me a couple of days to get everything else out, the tenant could still move in a few days early. I just wanted to get out of there at that point.
On the final day that I came to pick the last few things up and give back the keys, I saw that someone had entered and cleaned the carpet without getting my permission to come inside first. I was furious. They entered AGAIN without permission. When I met up with one of the managers, he did apologize and say that he should have told me that someone was going to come clean the carpets, but that he forgot because he was in a rush to try and get things ready for the new tenants. I accepted his apology, but… it was still illegal.
In the end, I got my full deposit back, minus carpet cleaning, and they did prorate my rent for the few days that I didn’t live in the apartment and let the new tenants move in. I was pleased about that, for sure.
Minus the somewhat shady things that happened when I left, I did like living here. I was bummed out that those things happened, but I think the good times I had in that apartment kind of overshadow those incidents. Looking back, I think I would live here again.