The Scout Scott's Addition — Local services in Richmond

UPDATE: Please note that these issues were well-documented in conversations with Brandon, Janie and Todd, and a comprehensive list of incidents was provided before I left.

My greatest regret is choosing to look past the negative reviews about this building. My husband and I were forced to break our lease early and leave The Scout after only 7 months of living here because of the conditions of the property and blatant lack of concern for safety.

One week into our lease, the handles to the main door were forcibly removed, leaving the door unlocked (an occurrence that would become common throughout our time here). There is no extra layer of security such as a front desk, or fob-restricted elevators in the lobby, so this allowed complete open, insecure access to the building. Shortly after, I left my unit one night to find a man sleeping in the hallway, along with his unleashed dog who was roaming around. Two days later, I saw a door to a unit on my floor completely kicked in off the hinges. On multiple occasions, non-residents were spotted roaming the hallways. When trying to address these concerns with the leasing manager, Brandon, I was assured these instances were unusual for The Scout, and that the door handles “came off during the snow storm”. I had lived in the building for eight days at this point, and there had been no such storm. I was also assured that the building planned to install security cameras throughout the property.

Throughout the following months, doors to both entrances have broken a number of times, and one or both elevators are constantly out of service. Buttons in the elevator are visibly damaged and are often forcibly removed. Despite the lengthy lease addenda, the majority of the policies presented are not enforced. There is a constant smell of smoke (both cigarette and marijuana), as well as butts and paraphernalia throughout the property. Because of the valet trash program, there is always garbage in the hallway, leaving smells and spills that are rarely if ever cleaned up in a timely manner. Pet waste is a huge problem, with stains on every sidewalk, and dog poop piling up on the grounds. If you raise concerns to the building’s management, they will be happy to let you know that it is your personal responsibility to report things to them, however no initiative is taken to create a clean and safe environment for residents. The office seems to exist purely to execute resident events, all the while strangers are roaming the hallways and residents are littering pills, razor blades and spills inside the building. We often had unsolicited conversations with fellow residents sharing the same sentiment about the state of the building. The office works very hard to build positive relationships with residents so that they overlook the negative qualities of the property, hence some of the positive reviews you will see. Residents are asked very frequently to leave positive reviews.

Our final straw occurred when a young homeless girl approached us in the hallway of our building, stating that she needed to use someone’s phone to obtain a ride. She said she was told to “wait” in a vacant unit for a ride to come. Meanwhile, she had no access to a phone or real help. We were deeply disturbed by this instance that highlighted the outside access to our building that could have posed a danger to residents. After this event took place, we had a sit-down meeting with management, where we reviewed a list of safety and sanitary issues that have taken place during our time here. They had nothing to say but “sorry”, though safety is their “highest priority”. I asked Brandon about the security cameras that were discussed back in January, and he said that they are “not in the budget”. Meanwhile, outdoor furniture is being unnecessarily replaced, and they are giving away AirPods when you sign your lease.

If you take nothing else from this review - again - PLEASE take the negative comments seriously. I did not feel safe living here, and could not in good conscience recommend this experience to...

Disclaimer - I’m writing the review as part of a promotion at The Scout but all of the opinions listed are unbiased.

I’ve lived at the Scout for 5 months now and it’s one of the favorite apartment complexes I’ve lived in. My apartment unit is ground level with ADA features (I don’t require them) so the review may be slightly different than the more traditional units.

I want to end with all the positives so I’ll start with cons: the parking situation is difficult. I’ve been towed, my guests have been towed, and when I’m not getting towed I’m either parked in a very tight spot in the River City Roll lot or parallel parked a longer bit away. the kitchen cabinets are very long and narrow. I’ve had to buy special utensil organizers and it’s still very difficult to utilize the storage in the kitchen specifically. if living in a ground level unit, you will have a lot more dirt and bugs in your unit than the traditional unit. NOTE: I mean spiders/flies/earwigs; I have never seen a roach or any other sort of bug that makes me alarmed about cleanliness/safety. not sure if it’s related to having an ADA/wheelchair accessible bathroom, but the shower head is very low along with poor water pressure (the latter of which I am used to in apartments).

The long list of pros: this is hands down the best Leasing Team I’ve worked with. The staff knows my name, is friendly, and answers all of my questions. the area feels very safe. I’m a single young woman and I’ve never felt concerned walking alone at night here. other than my personal distaste for the very grey kitchen, the units are spacious with features/appliances that are very easy to pair with various styles of furniture and decor. I particularly love the high ceilings and enormous bedroom closet. depending on where in the building you are located, there is little noise. Most of the noise I hear is from the parking lot. HOWEVER if your unit faces River City Roll, noise pollution will likely be a problem. Areas near the dog park may also have more noise. my unit has a window in both the living room and bedroom which I appreciate. I don’t think the ground floor gets quite as much natural light but I’ve seen other units which are very bright. I’ve also not completely murdered my new houseplants yet. the community is dog friendly and almost all of the dogs I’ve met are well behaved. all of the Steelhead managed apartments are required to host 3-4 events per month, so it’s been a great way to meet people around the complex and occasionally win prizes. I get free food at least once a month! the location isn’t incredibly walkable, but I can drive most popular places in Richmond within 10-15 minutes. It’s also easy to walk to a lot of local breweries within 7-20 minutes when the weather is nice. the maintenance staff is also incredibly friendly and do a great job at fixing things (one caveat: they tend to resolve tickets even if it’s something they need to come back and do when a part arrives. This leads to me having to open a second or third ticket to check on status but they’re so friendly & helpful that I don’t mind). I work from home and haven’t experienced any power/water outages in the 5 months I’ve lived here.

To summarize, I’m very happy staying at the Scout and would recommend living here. When my lease is up, the main reason I would debate leaving the property is just to be in a location slightly closer to my favorite spots & upsize my space, but I’d absolutely miss my closet, the grassy area to walk with my dog, and the fabulous people...

I was so excited to move to The Scout a year ago. I first want to start by saying management and maintenance are all great people. I miss going by the leasing office and hanging with the staff.

I had issues from move-in almost through end of the lease. I'll start with the unit issues. At move-in our apartment was not cleaned at all (I'll spare those details here). The main kitchen area and fridge had baby roaches which the apartment remedied and took care of quickly. After treatment we saw no more roaches. The washing machine had some issues and there was some miscommunications about getting that fixed. Next was part of the unit was not finished being painted at lease start and I had to remind them to finish painting. The condition of the unit was okay, most of the window latches were broken and most of the windows don't slide smoothly so them coming off track or getting stuck was a pain. The hot water heater had to be turned all the way up for me to get a hot shower if my roommate was in the shower at the same time. Every time you cook, stove, oven, air fryer anything the smoke detectors go off. This was every single time you cooked anything. Just turning the oven on to preheat would set off the alarm. Our door also had the wrong lock at move-in as well. Lastly, the worst thing about this unit was facing River City Roll, the weekend parties, and live events are every weekend. On top of that any outdoor events the stage setup faces the building. Don't expect to be able to watch TV or anything without turning it way up to compete with outdoor event bands.

I've lived in several cities now for work and the construction quality is not there. Anyone walking upstairs caused my bedroom and closet door to rattle. Even if I was sitting at the island in the kitchen I could feel the floor shaking. Anyone walking in the hallway you can hear them talking like they are right on the room with you. The walls and floors are really thin, you are going to hear everything everywhere.

The grounds around the building are not well kept. All last summer the amount of pet urine and flies to walk to the doors to get in the building. I even reached out with photos, I don't think the sidewalks at least by the doors were ever cleaned. There are so many dog feces around the rocks and grass near the building opposite park side. The upstairs rooftop area is nice but it was partially ripped up a few times during my time there.

If you move here, I don't recommend facing River City Roll and I recommend the parking pass. Whenever there are events you are booted out of the river city roll yellow spots. Also, every month our water/sewer bill was around $80.00 which I still do not understand. There were months were both of us weren't home for a month or more and the bill consistently stayed around that range. This is the highest I've ever had for 2 people who were mostly gone. Also, the building stairwells often had flashing seizer lights for months or completely out. There were points where the elevator was out and the stairs barely had any working lights.

Unfortunately, I really wanted to love this place, I had convinced my roommate to sign with me at The Scout. Just so many things went wrong or were neglected. I couldn't bring myself to pay what they were asking price wise and...