Temescal is an okay to decent place to live. Here are the pros and cons that I found while living here.
Pros:
- Access to the G and J bus lines is amazing
- The garden areas that surround the building are really quite nice. I loved all of the lizards that were running around and the greenery was refreshing
- Nicole + the rotating office staff were always really, really nice and professional. They were always able to answer my questions and were quick to get us help with maintenance
- The shopping center down the street is really nice to have
- The room sizes are very good, whether you're sharing or having a single room and nothing about the rooms other than the blinds and closet blinds are outdated. Very spacious closets too!
- The website used for paying rent is very easy to use and intuitive. Just be careful setting up if you choose to set up a monthly recurring payment, it can accidentally pay for the entire amount even if you specify an amount.
Cons:
- Near constant bugs + rodent problems. The office gave us glue traps, but our unit was constantly seeing earwigs, and the occasional mouse or cockroach. I really hated having to throw away glue traps full of bugs or ones with mice.
- The wood stove in our unit was not removed since we joined an existing lease. It was an eyesore and potentially a fire danger.
- The kitchen is extremely outdated and gross. The countertops were this ugly black and white speckle, which made it impossible to see messes on it. The stove is outdated and the pantries are gross from years of wear and tear.
- The shower did not get refinished until a month before we moved out, and it was super gross as well. Just old and not well-kept. Our bathroom also constantly got mold since there was no window in there and the door would just close and not stay open.
- Very far from downtown and a lot of other things in Davis.
- The AC was terrible. It couldn't detect the temperature upstairs so we would have to crank it really low for it to do anything, causing our PGE to be really expensive during the warmer months.
- The maintenance people would always make our floors really gross (mud, grime, etc.) so I was hesitant to report issues since I didn't want to clean up after them.
- The laundry machines would constantly break, not accepting coins or not doing a good job drying stuff. There are lots of machines, but I was never surprised to see 2-4 machines down. They ate a lot of my quarters.
- WiFi worked well in some rooms, but not in others. I know they are upgrading the WiFi, but it had not been improved before we left. We paid $60/month for it, but it was free our last month due to the change.
Overall, I didn't completely hate my time at temescal, but there are plenty of reasons why I didn't choose to renew my lease. read more