Ridgewood Apartments

I have lived in apartments before, but never any so deplorable and dilapidated as these. 1^st the roof leeks, 2^nd the pipes feeze, I had to have my my hot water tank replaced because of this. 3^rd the stove burned out and had to be replaced then the furnace. and that was all in the same month. I have not had A/​C since. Despite my complaint to Lindsay in the office. But the idiots want their money on time. despite ants crawling all over, neighbors puting garbage out in the hall (a fact they know but choose to ignore) neighbors freely bbq’ing on their balcony despite the fact it is against fire code. illegal working on cars. rude ignorant indignant grounds people as well as the manager.

In 2011, my cousin and I moved into Ridgewood Apartments. During the two years we lived in our first apartment we a handful of maintenance requests. One of which being our apartment door was not secure and was loose even with the dead bolt locked. The maintenance said they would replace it but never came back. The work order reads that the tenant feels unsafe yet nothing was done.
In 2013, we transferred to a second level apartment thinking it would be safer than our original ground level. We requested a quiet building because my cousin works night shifts and sleeps during the day. When we moved into our new apartment we immediately noticed an increase of traffic. Due to this traffic and having the same concerns with our apartment door, we asked maintenance to look at the door in December. We received the same response and nothing was done.
In the same month, We filed another work order regarding the front main door of the apartment building. People were propping the door open and eventually jammed it so the lock did not work. After two month of the door remaining unlocked, maintenance replaced the lock.
On April 9^th, a break-​in occurred in my apartment. I alone in my apartment when I heard a noise in the kitchen around midnight. I came into the kitchen to find a man bent over my stove. I yelled and went back into my room to call the cops. They came quickly and arrested the man. He lived in the upstairs apartment but was under the influenced and had went into the wrong apartment. After investigating, the police found out that my lock was not secure. You could use your thumb to turn it open without even using a key. The man also had a 3−4in pocket knife on him that was left on my floor along with some damage to some kitchen items. The police sent maintenance out to fix the issue with the door. The maintenance worker came with pre-​cut keys, but did not replace the dead bolt. This fix the dead bolt issue, but the door itself is still loose.

Keeping our heat at 68, we got three 300 dollar bills over the course of two winters. The electric and gas bills are insane here – Poor insulation is one problem. The second problem is the crawl space below every apartment. The third problem is that the heating vents for the lower level apartments are on the ceiling, so you can crank up your heat to 80 and it will still be freezing.
And don’t get me wrong, I love my apartment cold. But how did I get a 300 dollar bill for trying to keep an apartment at 68? DTE said the meter was correct, but if the furnace is always running because your apartment can’t reach a measley 68 degrees, you’ll get a nice high bill. The maintenance men tried to plastic the windows, but were kind of rude about the whole process and extremely slow. Trying to get them to come out and do everything they promised to do took a total of 3 weeks.
Then, probably because it’s so cold in the apartment even with the plastic on the windows, our pipes froze.
The management changes every year, and they don’t warn you when they change. Because of all the switching, apartments are run-​down and need lots of maintenance. The apartments are just run down, in general.
My final complaint is a violent, abusive neighbor upstairs who turned out to be an illegal occupant when we complained that he kept waking us up by screaming at his 15-​year-​old pregnant girlfriend. He slashed my roommate’s tires and numerously knocked books/​shelves over in our apartment by screaming, stomping, and slamming doors. Instead of taking care of it, they made him a legal additional occupant on the official renter’s lease.
Now, what I can say is that the current management company, Peak management, are very friendly up at the Leasing Office. They just aren’t very effective. Some of the maintenance men are nice, but they have had to return multiple times on multiple occassions to fix something they claimed they fixed the first time, (like a window, pilot light being out, etc.)
The washer and dryer is a plus, but it’s not enough to live here again. I honestly can’t wait to move.

Pretty much terrible.
They lure you in with an in-​unit washer and dryer, but that’s probably the best part.
The apartments are fairly nice themselves, but they don’t tell you that all the staff (except the apartment manager, Jay) is terribly incompetent. I don’t recall how many little hiccups I had with billing, including how they lost our «we’re moving out in 30 days» notice and ended up charging us over $ 1000 in fees because of it. We got it straightened out, but it was just… a headache.
Not to mention, this is pretty much a slum. I’ve called the police on my neighbors countless times for domestic disturbances, I’ve had my car keyed/​egged in the parking lot, etc. I didn’t feel particularly safe here.
I guess, in the end, it’s close to a lot of shopping — Target, Meijer, Kroger, etc. but it’s all the crappy A2 versions of said stores. The maintenance guys were pretty nice, but it was hit and miss on if they got around to doing things promptly, so on and so forth.
In short, I don’t recommend this place. There are better places for the same price, and if I’d known *anything* about the Ann Arbor area, I would’ve probably looked elsewhere.