Identity Davis — Local services in Davis

Most of ID Davis's 5 star reviews are fake, usually by telling people who tour the building to give them 5 stars in exchange for stuff. I lived here for a full year, so here's an accurate review. With the character limit, I can't say much, but here are the noteworthy items.

The place is ridiculously overpriced, both in rent and fees. Their prices are far above standard housing prices in Davis. Of course, prices across the city will probably rise with the advent of gentrified housing like ID, but unless you are very rich, I implore you to search for cheaper housing. There are many apartments in Davis that offer the same experience as ID, but much cheaper.

ID is conveniently close to UCD campus, but so are other apartments. Having laundry in your own room is great, though it'll cost you laundry materials and raise the electricity bill. The study room is nice. The lounge is whatever, arcade machines and pool sticks frequently broken. The apartment having furniture is useful. However, the chairs are atrocious, and the beds are not particularly comfortable. They tend to rock, and the mattresses are very low quality.

The electricity costs are ridiculous. Be prepared to conserve heat and AC or you will be charged huge fees. The fans in the bathrooms make no noise, so you won't have privacy in there if you have roommates. The ceilings are very high on the second floor and low on the upper floors. If you're being offered a sign-on bonus, it is not nearly as good as it seems. It will be offered in the form of gift cards. Even the straight cash options will cause you to lose a large amount of the bonus to service fees. Parking is horrible around ID, and the garage is very expensive and has very limited spots. Elevators are constantly down. The vents frequently make loud banging noises.

The staff are mediocre, usually. They will usually try to help you, but they won't go the extra mile and can be annoying. My apartment's fire alarm ran out of battery on the first week, and the staff refused to send maintenance to fix it. We had to buy batteries ourselves and put a chair on our table to climb up and fix it to stop the nonstop beeping in the middle of the night.

You ABSOLUTELY CANNOT consistently get food delivered to ID Davis. Due to all the locked doors barring entry to the building, most food delivery options will just leave your food either by the front door or back door, where it will probably get kicked over or stolen.

ID Davis has a pest problem. It's not as bad as other places in Davis, but it is bad. You will regularly encounter many bugs, and occasionally vermin and bats. In addition, the window screens are not effective, so you cannot open your windows at times or you will be flooded with bugs, even with the windows only opening 2 inches or so.

Mail is terrible. I never got anything delivered to ID, but it's an absolute mess of mail keys you probably will never get, packages being returned or unsendable, and asking the office for everything.

The security is not good. The vast majority of the security cameras are fake. The parking lot can be very easily accessed by anyone. Car windows are smashed all the time, both in the inner garage, the outer parking lot, and surrounding streets. Leave no valuables in your cars. The bike garage is fairly secure, though.

The internet is kinda bad. The wifi speed is mediocre, and connecting requires jumping through a lot of hoops. The wifi will die sometimes. There is only one ethernet port in every APARTMENT. Bedrooms don't have ethernet, though you can supposedly use an adaptor on the wall jacks in rooms to get it. I never saw anyone actually manage this.

I was going to give this place 2 stars, but then they tried to charge me for a mail key I never recieved and charged my roommates and I nearly $1000 for some light cleaning. For its price, ID is not worth it, and I would encourage you to seek housing elsewhere. Housing in Davis is generally abysmal, but you can do better for your wallet while getting a nearly identical...

I'v been living at Identity for several months now, and here are some pros and cons based on my experience here: Pros: Very close to campus 5 minute walk to the ARC and only a block away from Trader Joe's. Gym is fairly good. There is a range of free weights, a couple Stairmasters, treadmills, yoga mats, kettlebells, a machine with multiple attachments, and some other equipment. Multiple areas to study in, including the Clubhouse, Sky Lounge, Quiet Study Lounge, and the other one right next to it, and the front patio thing if you want to be outside. The rooms themselves are really nice. I like how we have a bathtub and a double sink outside the bathroom. The closet space is good. There is some storage underneath the bed. The beds are full sized and comfortable. If you have a double, there are pegboard dividers in between which gives you the feeling of having your own room and more privacy. Big windows with blinds 👍 Furnished. The maintenance staff are super friendly :)

Cons The fire alarm system is very broken and obnoxious. It has gone off at least 20 times (for no reason) since I have moved here. One time it was on and off until past 2 AM. I can't imagine how much worse that would have been during midterms or finals. The desks in our rooms kind of suck. There are two small drawers and an uncomfortable chair that appears to be glued together. The cost of living is higher than advertised which is very disingenuous. There are a bunch of random fees that accumulate on to your rent each month. It is not specified what they are for and why you were charged. The inspections can feel really invasive. They give you a range of time in advance of when they might appear for the inspections. However this range of time is so wide (i.e 10 am - 5pm) you really don't know when exactly they're going to show up. You could be in the middle of a shower when you hear a knock on your door and then all of the sudden someone's in your room. I think it would be better if it was by appointment or more of a specific schedule, or at least given a heads up 30 minutes beforehand. The common areas are filthy. This is my biggest complaint. Although there is a variety of areas to study or socialize in, they tend to smell very stale or like dirty mop water. Most of the couches and carpets have a variety of thick mystery stains and overall look very grimy. The quiet study lounge is well-maintained but definitely needs more airflow or an air filtration system (especially in the private rooms) because it tends to get really stuffy and musty. Also if you live here and are reading this, can you please make sure you're cleaning up after yourselves? Its extremely unpleasant to sit down at a table to study only to find it littered with crumbs and sticky substances. Thank you :)) Allegedly there are a decent amount of fake reviews written by previous staff members who were paid to do so which is really...

REAL RESIDENT REVIEW 2021-22 LEASE YEAR:

It seems like a lot of the reviews are by people who didn't sign. Maybe there was an incentive given to leave a review during the tour? Note that move-in day was in late September 2021. So any review left before that point does not accurately capture the resident experience.

TL;DR: Great common areas, small room, management hard to work with. Wasted potential, would not recommend.

There's a reason why there are no dimensions on the floor plans online. I own a nice gaming chair, and had to leave at home since there is no space in my room for anything other than the wooden desk chair custom-fit to slide under the desk. I live in a single room in a 5-bedroom floor plan. Bathroom and common area are ENORMOUS though. Idk why they think I'd spend more time in the TV area with my 7 random roommates or using my bathroom than actually in my room.....

Management is also not my favorite, they recently hired another person who seems to be improving things but they've failed to deliver on promised signing bonuses unless we repeatedly ask for our money. They also did not deliver mail for several months, and have still not charged us any electricity bill (we are assuming a giant bill coming soon for all electricity use thus far, but they have not communicated what to expect). Maintenance is understaffed and overstretched. Things (like the elevators and trash chutes!) break monthly and management does not communicate well, leaving us to speculate. Victor the maintenance guy is fantastic though, 5/5 for him.

I've never ordered a package to be delivered to Identity but when I do go into the office I sometimes question how organized it is. And being a brand-new apartment complex, delivery drivers have a hard time finding us and sometimes dump packages on the side of the road (which is not ID's fault but still worth mentioning). They were also slow on delivering furniture to the apts. My roommates were without table/desk for a few weeks at the start of the lease.

Common areas like the clubhouse and study room are great, although it would be nice if there was more guidance about noise. Sometimes other residents party/are loud in the "quiet study" areas and that can be annoying when I use them to prepare for big tests. I've made great memories with friends in the clubhouse, with so much space I've been the go-to host for Friendsgiving, etc. But that still does not excuse a lot of the other issues I've had with the place. I hope they succeed and fix a lot of these problems, but as of today I would not recommend...