One word: Roaches. The entire complex is infested with them. They were all over our apartment - in the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, and the bedroom. I kept our kitchen very clean, but they were everywhere, including our cabinets, drawers, under the sink, in the stove, even in the refrigerator! And no matter how much I cleaned, there was roach poop everywhere. I had to throw away so much food from the pantry because they got into it. There were even roaches in our furniture, crawling inside my dresser drawers and in the bed frame. It was absolutely disgusting. They tell you they spray every Friday if you request it, but no matter how many times we asked, they somehow "forgot" to keep us on the list. And the few times that the exterminator did spray in our unit, it made absolutely no difference. We spent lots of money on our own traps and repellents, but that didn't help either. When I went to the front office to complain, they acted completely surprised to hear that there were roaches, despite the fact that the office staff live in the building and there have clearly been other complaints (see the other reviews for this building). Also, if you come home after sunset, you can see them crawling all over the courtyard. The Health Department really should investigate, since roaches can cause serious allergies and illness.
The roaches are the worst, but certainly not the only problem at Avalon Square. The entire building is in a general state of disrepair. When we first moved in, our unit looked like it was in good shape and had recently been redone, but we quickly realized that it had been done poorly and cheaply. The tile in the shower started chipping and peeling soon after we moved in, and the nails from where the carpet meets the wood flooring started coming up. At one point, the ceiling in our bedroom started leaking and it took forever for them to fix it. Even after they fixed the leak, they never came back to fix our bedroom ceiling, which had a huge brown stain from the leak and peeling paint.
We also had a problem with noisy neighbors. There were many nights when we were woken up in the middle of the night by people partying late at night in the courtyard, which our bedroom and living room windows faced. When we called and complained to management, they said there was nothing they could do. One of the people down the hall from us owned a large Husky dog and in the evenings, they would let the dog run up and down the hallway, making lots of noise.
The washers and dryers are often broken, or will randomly stop mid-cycle, forcing you to pay for another cycle. The garage floods anytime it rains. If you complain about anything to Laura Sanders in the front office, she will either ignore you or disagree with you. It's useless to ask her to help with anything.
One of the most disgusting experiences I had at the building actually involved a man who was sitting outside of her apartment (or what appeared to be her apartment, since she came in and out several times while I was watching and spoke to him). I was sitting at the pool below and the man would occasionally spit over the balcony railing directly onto the pool deck below, where people walked with bare feet. She saw him doing this and did nothing. It was disgusting and I couldn't believe she just ignored it.
Avalon Square is by the far the worst place I have ever lived. It may be relatively cheap for the location, but it's absolutely not worth it. We have lived here for the past 1.5 years and are so excited to be finally be moving out. Don't live here if you can avoid it. read more
