Northside Apartments — Attraction in Richardson

READ WHOLE REVIEW. If you care that much about being close to campus...just get the normal units not the smart apts. If not save your money. Look at the recent reviews also, not old ones. 1. They treat their residents like trash. I have stories for you, but the most eye opening (ESPECIALLY IF YOU HAVE A DAUGHTER), was about this girl I knew who was asleep at around 8am. One of the MALE workers barged in her apt (door lock wasn't working more on that issue later), banged on her bedroom door screaming "YOU MISSED YOUR RENT PAY UP". She got scared, she stayed in her room and had to call her roommate up. They got the guy to leave after she calmed down. They went to the front office to complain about this guy. They said that we have the right to do that if you owe. Later found out that she did not forget to pay her rent, instead, they tried to charge her twice for the same month, bank declined the payment. One time, it was 8am. I was asleep. A maintenance worker comes in our apt, no knocking since our locks don't work...just comes in. Starts banging on my door and screaming "WAKE UP! COME OUT HERE! MAINTENANCE". I had no clue who this is and there's chance of threat since our locks don't work. Half asleep, I opened the door after listening to this psychopath for good minute. Tells me that someone put in a work order. Told him it was my roommate who put it in. He then tells me that I can go back to sleep now. CAN? WYM I CAN? On move in day, everyone, even parents, were at war with the employees. There was a long line that went outside, it was really hot, only people at the front were able to fit inside a tiny room where the employees were enjoying their AC, chick fil a sandwiches, and cold drinks. Two people in my building line alone, collapsed from heat stroke and ambulances had to come. They were constantly screaming at us to stay outside because they have to adhere to guidelines for capacity. Understandable, but after years of being in business, they should have planned things out better to prevent that from happening. On top of that, they made everyone pay an extra $20 fee which had to be done on the apt app while we were in line. Only the people who were at the front could hear this news and it just made the whole process ten times slower than it could've been had they just included this fee in the deposit or even give us a heads up to do this before hand through email or something. They didn't do any of that. 2. Some of the plus units are in bad condition. Paint damage, broken drawers, cabinets, broken appliances, broken bed frames, door locks, etc. 3. They have a TERRIBLE maintenance team. If you put in a work order, they will not show up. They might put in a comment and say that the issue was fixed, when they don't even show up. I requested new AC filters, guy just came in our apt no knocking, threw the old filter on the floor, and left. He left the work order as completed. 4. Problems with smart apt door locks/smart apt features. Our door locks (as well as most other plus apt door locks) weren't working properly for about a whole semester. The other smart apartment features are still to this day not working at all. Their excuse the whole time was "Waiting on a software update". Btw, they charge you a monthly fee for smart features even if they don't work. 5. SLOW internet. You're looking on average about 5-10 mbps download/upload. Ethernet doesn't help. 6. Amenities are in poor condition. Pool table doesn't have all the balls, sticks are all broken and doesn't even have tips, even the holder for the pool sticks require you to scratch the wall (makes you wonder who even assembled that thing). TV's in media rooms are just there, you need to get your own HDMI/device. It's very clear to me what's going on. They used to be quality apts, then when they expanded to plus apts, everything just became too much for them. They definitely have some sort of monopoly with the students who have don't complain about living conditions, while also leveraging their proximity to campus and how nice the complex looks from...

I lived here for 1 year, but it hasn’t always been perfect. For it being my first apartment experience, I believe it was fair.

PROS: Modern Design: I was in one of the newer buildings. Location: Near my campus. Maintenance: Usually fixed my issue within a few days. Noise: I never had complaints from or for other units. Food: There are nice food options with a great variety within the complex itself. Valet Trash: If you’re sort of lazy when it comes to taking out trash, then you’ll happy with their valet trash service. Amenities: I liked the option of having study rooms and other amenities like the grills and pools.

CONS: Communication: Getting a hold of a representative through phone is always a hassle, their voicemail inbox is always full so they cannot return your calls and immediately hang up. They had me on hold for an 62 minutes and then sent me straight to “voicemail”. They have an option to message them through their app, but it’s not an immediate answer. Price: I believe my 4x4 unit was on the overpriced side of things. But all things considered, it’s okay. Just okay. Space: I felt as if my unit’s common area and kitchen was small considering it was shared amongst 4 adults. I’d say expect to share kitchen dishes, cookware, etc. I even had one of my roommates use some closet space to store kitchen items haha. Utility Charges: For some reason, Northside has it set up to where your utilities can be delayed. I’m not talking about monthly, more like utilities from 3 months worth of usage. Then they’ll randomly send you a message saying you owe all those charges within a week or so. In my opinion, that’s bizarre. I believe they warn us about this on our lease but I honestly expected a much lower delay like a month, not 3 or 4. My lease ends tomorrow so I hope they don’t charge me in October randomly haha. It’s such a joke. Mandatory Move-Out Review: The only reason I’m writing this review is because it’s on a checklist which needs to be completed before my lease ends. This is probably why they have under a 3 star rating. Not sure why they insist on shooting themselves in the foot like this, but so be it. I wouldn’t have written an average review like this, I would’ve skipped it, but I’m forced to I guess. So cheers to this slightly above-average 3 star review or whatever.

TINY COMPLAINTS: After 9 months of never having to use the key fob to enter my apartment building, they decided to activate the lock. So, randomly one day, we all had to start using the key fob. Not only that, but food delivery services could no longer be dropped at your front door. Not sure if people were getting food stolen or what, but it was such a tedious change. The weekend before my lease ended, which is commonly a weekend used for moving out, the elevator for my building was out of service. And I’m on the top floor. So you could imagine my disappointment in moving all my things out with no elevator in use. Thank you for the workout Northside, but no thank you. Not sure why Northside wouldn’t immediately try and fix this issue so close to having leases end, but I can’t say I’m surprised haha. It was as if it was their final goodbye message to me. How sweet of them.

So what did we learn through this one year experience at Northside? I learned that I can’t wait to move on, only because I have a better option already laid out for me. But I see why some would like to renew. Northside is slightly above-average. As you can tell, the cons surpass the pros, but it’s not horrible. I’ll always remember Northside as my first apartment experience. Maybe when in 25 years I’ll look back and reminisce on how an apartment used to be my biggest worry and laugh to myself. I’ll cherish the memories made at Northside. And I’m sure I have more cons, but can’t think of them all right now. In all honesty I just want to get this mandatory review over with already so I can compete this move-out checklist. So I’ll end it there. I hope Northside enjoyed this review. They can take this as my final goodbye message too. Just...

Apartment overall: So what's great is there are bars downstairs and a number of restaurants, Jimmy Johns delivers right to your door. And it's right across the street from campus and right next door to the testing center. So all of that is excellent, but the rooms are, in my opinion, not worth the hefty price (the price was the initial reason why I had to move out). The kitchens are great, they're updated and everything works, so that's a plus, but the walls and ceilings are paper thin. I can hear everything above me, next to me. And I'm not a light sleeper by any means, and I hate wearing earplugs so this was an issue. And that darn courtyard is built like an amphitheater: two people could be having a conversation at a normal volume level and I could pretty much hear everything they were saying, so imagine what it's like when a big group of people party out there (which happens frequently). I can't tell you how many times I was kept up until 12-1am because of the noise (quiet hours, they said this place has?...I beg to differ).

Leasing Office: Ahh....the leasing office...the reason this place is rated so low... This is about to get long, and I apologize for that, but I really recommend you read it in its entirety or at least skim it if you are thinking about moving here. So I moved into the Northside apartments by taking over someone's lease halfway through the year(I moved in at the start of January for the spring semester), so at this point the vast majority of the residents had already been living there for a semester and it was time for everyone to renew their lease if they wanted to. I had only been living here for a couple of weeks and I was nowhere near sure if this place had a big enough bang for the buck. So I told this to the leasing office staff who called me to ask if I was going to renew (deadline was nigh) and she kindly suggested that if I wasn't sure, I should just renew and "worst case scenario you could cancel your lease and only have to pay a $200 relet fee, which will really only be $100 if you get your deposit back". So this sounded like an OK option. All I would have to do is pay a $200 fine if I decide not to stay, and in the grand scheme of things that was far more preferable. So I thought. So come move out time, they tell me that the process was not as simple as I thought: I have to also find someone to take over my lease and that they will not help me with this process until their vacant rooms are booked up. Now, jeez, if I had been given this information when asked to renew I would not have renewed. And this may not seem like a big deal to you, but, boy, it was to me. Major headache. So after a few stressful months, I found a girl to take over my lease. I was unavailable to meet with her that day so she went into the leasing office by herself to fill out an application for my room. Meanwhile we're talking via text. So she gets in there, is told that the only female room available is this other girl's room so they give her an application for that room instead. But I called the leasing office to clear it up, and to tell them that no she was coming in for MY room, and they assured me that they will take care of it, and to call later to check on the progress of her application. So I do that, but alas they still had given the girl the OTHER room even though they said they fixed the whole mess. They said this was due to a "misunderstanding", but I think it was due to disorganization and a lack of communication between staff. Several times did a lower-level staff member say something to me that was either wrong, misguided, or was never relayed to anyone else to make a difference.

At the end they did try to work with me and help me, Sarah even waived my relet fee. But honestly, this was just such a bad experience that this place does not deserve more than 2 stars from me. They just really need to train their staff better. I overlooked all the 1 and 2 stars before I chose here because I thought I wouldn't have any issues. But the pros may outweigh the cons for you. Just...