Lothlorien Apartments

After contemplating on what I thought of the apartment community I live in, «Mixed feelings» is what ultimately came to mind.
There have been some mishaps (annoyances such as missing packages, and rent-​payment-​system charging us an extra fee starting mid-​lease), but I am assuming that these things will happen where ever you are in the United States. The location is fine, if you don’t mind the busy street out front. You sure can’t beat the five minute walk to campus (13 minutes door to door to my department too), and the building is maintained adequately.
The new General Manager is good. I like him. He does good work. We have lived here for 2 full years at the end of our lease this coming August, and will be moving to one of the other buildings in the community – a modest upgrade of getting a bigger room.

Honestly, I’m just going to move here so I don’t really know how things will go from now. However, I think the rooms are nice and Tyler (I assume he is the new manager here) is really helpful.

I moved into this apartment last August because I like the location and the staff seems to be friendly. But ever since I moved in, I discovered the biggest problem with this apartment: NOISE. The apartment management office claims they have quiet hout restriction, but it is just a lie to get you sign on the lease. I have neighbors party from 1 am to 3 am all the time, and the management office didn‘t do anything about it. Most recently the property management office decided to cut some cost and merge the office with apartment next door. So right now we have no office on our apartment anymore. Which is super inconvenient for picking up packages, setting up maintenance request and etc. Most annoying part is the rent is expensive. It claims to be a luxury apartment but service is so poor.

Do not live here! I’ve lived here for two years, and I’m very disappointed. The rent is getting higher every year, and the service is getting worse. They even close the office in the apartment. No one cares what’s going on in this apartment anymore. Things don’t get fixed, and random people just come in in the middle of the night. It’s not even secure. Besides, now we need to walk to the building next door to pick up our packages. They keep messed up people’s packages. One day, they told me they couldn’t find, and asked me to come back later after they organized it. However, I came back two hours later, the office is closed! It’s very inconvenient, and it’s not worth the money!

Don’t live in there. The managers are really bad. They closed the office at this apartment and forced us to pick up our packages at the wilsonian office, which is ridiculous! What’s worse, when I came to picked up my packages, no one was at the office. When what’s the point about closing one office? By the way, I agreed with others said. The walls is too thin. Every time I talked to the office about this issue they just said they would try to talk to the neighbors but they helped nothing. Don’t live there!

I stayed in Lothlorien for two years and I’m happy that I’ve decided to move out of there. This place was quite good when I first moved in; however, over the years, the management team at the leasing office changed, and so did their services. Here are some of the issues that I’ve had with this place:
— They used to provide tenants with light bulbs; that’s no longer the case.
— The leasing office at the ground floor isn’t always open during their alleged «work hours» — sometimes the staff would be inside the room, but put a «will be back» sign on the door, just so that they don’t have to deal with people.
— The maintenance crew does not respond immediately — or within 24 hours — to your service requests.
— Sometimes, you’ll receive a package, but you won’t know about it, until you specifically ask the leasing office whether or not they have received your package.
— The parking lot isn’t safe. A friend of mine that also stayed at this place had the windows of her car smashed. When she reported the issue to the leasing office, they told her that they weren’t responsible to her car’s damage, even though her car was parked at her designated parking spot!
Besides the points that I’ve mentioned above, Lothlorien Apartments is located in one of the most dangerous blocks of the University District.

Do yourself a favor and avoid this place.
–When we first looked at the place, the staff promised us that there are floor plans with dens available, and we would get one of those when we sign the lease. When we actually signed the lease, they told us there were not any den units left. We got stuck with a floor plan we didn’t want because it was too late to look for other apartments by that point.
–Our unit did not have blinds when we moved in. The staff promised us that they would be installed within the first two weeks. It took over two months for the blinds to be installed, and they didn’t even work properly.
–The elevator is broken half the time, and they take forever to get fixed.
–The trash room is disgusting and often overflowing.
–Sometimes it takes weeks for the maintenance crew to respond to work orders.
–The front and back doors are often unlocked during off-​hours (after 6 on weekdays) and the security guard is almost never around.
–When we moved out, we got charged with over a hundred dollars of miscellaneous cleaning fees, despite the fact that we spent an entire day scrubbing down the place to leave it spotless. I wrote an email inquiring about the charges and never got a response.

This has honestly been one of the worst decisions of my life. The walls and ceilings are paper thin, and you can hear tons of noise from the street. One elevator was out of service for months — I heard one of the leasing office staff tell a prospective renter that it was just «very expensive» to fix, despite their astronomical rents. There are allegedly security guards that I’ve never seen, and people frequently hold doors and elevators open for complete strangers. The trash room is constantly overflowing. Access to the garage through the back alley is extraordinarily difficult.
During week two, the apt. above me flooded, which in turn flooded mine and fried my circuit breaker. It took 45 minutes to even get a hold of the emergency maintenance person, and another 20 for him to arrive, with my ceiling raining down on me all the while. Worse yet, I had no electricity in the bedroom from the water damage, and repairs weren’t completed for over a week after filing a service request.
There is also no walk through for move in and move out. My place was filthy upon moving in with several damaged items that we’re never repaired. BUT, when I was moving out, I was given a checklist of things to do including cleaning thoroughly, which I did. Nevertheless, I am now being charged $ 10 – 50 per task for cleaning counters and floors and sinks that I left spotless, with no room to argue because they don’t provide walk throughs.
DO NOT LIVE HERE.

Don’t ever live here. Horrible service. Lazy staff. Unprofessional. Elevator doesn’t work halt of the time. All they do is want your money.

Lothlorien was my dream apartment as I had began planning my move with them mid-​2012, then new management took over and revoked their pet policy. Many apartment sites still list them as allowing pets. This is not the case :(

BEST in the u-​district.
I’m surprised I’m the first to write a review considering how good this place is. The only reason why I am giving this place 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the parking and price of rent. But I’ll break down everything that is important…
Management: I haven’t had many issues living at this place as it is still fairly new — but whenever we have had a problem or concern, the management is always friendly and on top of things. Very laid back and friendly. There is a new young lady at the desk, though, who is really rude. I hope she gets fired. She has a nack for NOT DOING HER JOB. Seriously. She doesn’t do what she is supposed to… like update requests. She also has no clue what’s going on most the time. Norman, on the other hand, is really nice and helpful.
Cleanliness: the place is always clean and I always see someone vacuuming the hallways and there is never an odors in the apartment except for the elevators sometimes when it is filled with the smell of food from take-​outs from other tenant who live in the apartment. The ventilation is probably a ⁴⁄₅.
Noise and Insulation: The insulation is really good here — in the winter, we barely have to turn up the heat. There is barely any noise from outside the building — which is good because on thursday nights and friday nights, if the window is left open, you could hear the bar fights — but i guess if you are a people watcher, like myself, it’s quite amusing. =P But when I don’t care for the noise, the windows are so well sealed that I don’t hear anything once it’s closed.
Parking: Parking on the streets is close to impossible and parking in the garage is a little difficult if you have a larger car. There is also a fee for parking — $ 85 per a spot every month but this is normal compared to other places in the area.
Location: The location is great for its convenience to campus, grocery stores, freeway entries, and restaurants. IT IS ALSO on the safer side of the university way but still — it isn’t the safest place in seattle but it’s not the apartment’s fault.
Rent: They are very good about keeping rent at the same rate even on a month to month when the contract is over. They are accommodating if the contract is up and the apartment turns out to be less expensive if you were to forgo it and it goes back out on the market again. I have never seen an apartment do this for us. Even though there is a 3 day grace period for the rent, I have paid the rent a day late before and they were very understanding when I explained why.
Notifications: They always provide plenty of time for notices and almost always provide accommodations for any inconveniences.