U-District Student Housing: The Kelsey Apartments

THE ROOM: I live in a 3 bedroom apartment, one of our toilets had been broken since day one (which was last September). They said they were going to fix it and other minor stains and dents on various walls and surfaces «right away», but came to fix the toilet one and a half month later (during which I sent them 2 emails and called them 4 times). Only a week after that, the toilet broke again. The stains and dents still haven’t been fixed. Power outlets are super loose in our room and will detach from just stepping on the cord. It takes some effort to keep mold off of kitchen cupboards and surfaces.
THE COMMON AREA: The elevator stinks of trash juice. I know a few people have lost their mails and packages from signs that were posted in the mailroom.
MORE ON THE MANAGEMENT: The new management handles rent very poorly. We had to pay rent with check for the first few months after they took over. And they once mischarged us an extra ~50 bucks the first month.
During the months we had to pay with check, they failed to include water and sewage fees (which you are supposed to pay with rent) in the amount due. We had to call them (a few times, because they never picked up the first time around) every month to ask how much we actually owed.
They now have an online payment system set up, but never let us know how to sign up or log in. We (my 3 roommates and I) had to walk to their office near Uvill, and wrote our email addresses down for them to send the link to set up our accounts. GUESS WHAT, THEY ONLY SENT THE DAMN LINK TO ONLY TWO OF US. They also assumed that two of my roommates were international students (one of them wasn’t) and asked for their student visa. I’m not saying being an international student is a bad thing to be, but why would you just assume someone is one?
PROTIP: The only way to talk to the people who run this place is to not pay rent. That’s the only time they’ll get in touch with you.
BOTTOMLINE: I do not recommend living here. The building is alright, the people who run it sucks.

Disclaimer, management was changing hands while we were living here.
That being said, utilities bills were sloppily done, the maintenance was on the slower side, my toilet still doesn’t flush everything in one go. But the living space is pretty good for the price. Not the newest building, but not falling apart either. Be sure to air out your rooms every now and then or stuff will start growing. Had a happy year here living with 7 guys in a 5 bedroom. Clean it regularly, keep in contact with management, pay on time, and the Kelsey is a perfectly fine place that gets the job done.

I’ll save you a bunch of reading now — don’t live in the Kelsey.
Pros: thick walls meant that we generally heard very little of our neighbors, good location in the U district (near I5 and the Ave, though still a sketchy neighborhood), and underground parking garage saves you the trouble of street parking (though it costs a fortune for a spot)
Cons: The management staff was slow to respond and generally incompetent, but the owners are the true sleazebags here. They are cheap and they do not care about their tenants. After we pointed out how we signed a lease that said we would go month-​to-​month after the first year, they simply said «sign up for another year or get out.» While we could have wasted money hiring lawyers, we were college students, we couldn’t afford that.
Washing machines, elevators, door locks, handrails in the stairwells, etc. are fixed VERY slowly if ever. I lived in the Kelsey for 2 years, and the entire time there was a display on our floor that was SUPPOSED to show which washers/​dryers were in use. Never worked. Once.
The large hedges in the front of the Kelsey provide privacy but more importantly provide obnoxious hedge trimmers/​leaf blowers at 8AM way too often.
Our parking garage was broken into several times. Every time, our garage door would have to be reprogrammed so that the burglar couldn’t open the garage door with the opener they stole. Reasonable. Except this meant that every 2 weeks or so, I would get home and my garage door opener wouldn’t work. I’d have to park my car, run inside the building, open the garage door, turn on my car, and drive in. Eventually, I realized that our lazy management was only altering 1 of 10 possible switches on the garage door opener. It would take me about 30 seconds at most to «guess» the new garage door code. No wonder people keep breaking in, it’s so easy!
The Kelsey was relatively expensive for a college-​student budget in the U district. My friends got MUCH MUCH MUCH more space for $ 100 less a month. Each. In a three bedroom apartment. I can’t remember the name of their apartment complex, but I believe it was on 12^th. And the sleazy owners raise the price every year, because they know that there is always enough demand. They literally said that to me.
The fact that this apartment complex is all college students means you get all the noise and terrible smells that come with them. People who lived in this complex could not cook, or cooked something rotten, and then DRAGGED their DRIPPING GARBAGE BAGS through the floors, on to the elevator, and into the garage. The garage permanently stinks of death. I hold my breath when I’m in there.
Do not live in this place. It is awful.