MY COMMUNITY

Anybody who's been an apartment renter in the age of the Internet is, or should be, very familiar with Apartment Ratings. Apartment Ratings is a user generated database of information about apartment buildings anywhere in the US. I, and other apartment renters know to visit this site before applying to any apartment.

Since my decision to move to this new community was purely financial plus I'd lived here in the past during my marriage I didn't bother checking the page. I mean, again, I am a firm beliver that you get what you pay for and for $560 a month for the floorplan below you know it's too good to be true (As proven by my many move-in maintenance woes). It is a rather large apartment for much, much cheaper than most of the other communities in the area. They are also known for being a little on the bad side; so much that when I gave my old tenant my new address she replied incredulous, "You moved to Andover?!"



It seems that Apartment Ratings has become quite a big deal within the Apartment renter community for both tenants and landlords. It seems that landlords are paying close attention to what is being said about their communities cuz it can cost them valuable business.

Unfortunately it seems that some communities are now trying to devalue the entries in this site through bribes of sort. Yesterday I found the flyer below taped to my front door.



Essentially they want you to go review their community which they will prize with a $25 gift certificate. Albeit, it doesn't say you have to give them a GOOD review I am sure most people will assume that if the review they give is poor they will not qualify for certificate.

In my case, the staff has been friendly since I moved in. All the girls in the office are very polity and friendly from the get-go and it didn't change after I signed over the dotted line. The times I've called about the maintenance issues they've been apologetic and at a minimum feign concern. When I moved in and my AC wasn't working the guy came out within the hour to fix it. The other problems have been neglected a little more but slowly they're getting fixed. They assured me everything would be fixed by Friday and it if wasn't I am to call "Pat" (not sure her hierarchy amongst the office staff) on Saturday.

I don't plan to review the apartment community for two reasons; 1st is of mere principle... "it's about principality, Smokey!". I don't think they should ask their tennents to review the community in exchange for fabulous prizes in an evident effort to skew the ratings. 2nd, I have many maintenance issues which have not been resolved. Maybe after they have been resolved to my satisfaction.