Apartment Review for Rancho San Joaquin - Irvine, CA

Security: lighting has remained an issue for the year I've lived here. Carport lights are continually defunct and flickering, as well as the lighting for stairwells, amenities, and porches. My car was also stolen from my carport while I slept. There is no presence of security here other then its central locale in "America's safest city". Ironically, I moved to Irvine from Oakland, where my car was never vandalized in any manner.

Parking: Parking is relatively decent, but, in my case, my assigned space was a good walk from my unit. Additionaly, there is a very minimal concern expressed towards the needs of the disabled. Most curbs are raised throughout the complex.

Appearance: The apearance of the complex is fairly nice in its "Irvineness". However, what they don't tell you when you move in is the price of this appearance to you. Monday through Friday means leaf blowers and lawnmowers at 8am sharp. This has been extremely annoying. The lights in the spas and pools also remain defunct for long periods of time.

Management and Office Staff: They are all friendly and courteous, it just takes patience to persevre through their lack of followup. It takes a while for them to get back to you on any pertinent issue, but they are always quick to say that they'll get back to you or that they're "right on top of it". As far as security is concerned, they refused to relocate my parking spot after my car was stolen, which is still a matter of concern to me. They also said that they were going to notify the community via newsletter of occurence, which never happened.

Maintenance: The staff is nice, and they're all very courteous except for the fact they always show up as early as possible, 8am. They'll give three knocks, a pause, and then start opening the door. There have been more then one occasion where I had to forcefully hold the door shut in the nude at 8 o'clock. They are pretty good about fixing minor problems like toilets, etc., but they really suck when it comes to major problems. For example, my unit has termites...bad. The termites left two large mounds in the ground from where they were digging into the wall. They simply put putty over the holes and called it a day. There are huge soft spots about every three feet in the floor throughout the apartment. My main gripe has been my water smelling like sewage for the duration of my lease. This brings up the Irvine Company scenario of maintenance. They have a policy of 48 hour address of maintenance requests. However, they only have to address the issue, and not solve it. This is frequent for anything that confuses them, like my water. It has smelled like the river outside my apartment, somewhere between Coney Island sess puddle and ecolli. It will never be fixed. I feel bad for the people moving in after me.

Condition of Unit: Is very Irvine. Its a mirage really. At first glance it seems really nice. But then you notice that the carpet is older then I am, the walls are painted with thin layers and streaks. There was paint all over our carpet. The ceilings have aspestoes, of which you are advised in your lease not to touch in any way (but this doesn't stop the maintenance from fucking with it and leaving it all over your floor), and the walls have lead paint remnance. The layout is fairly unusable in the one bedroom and the water view is extra for some reason? Our vertical blinds broke within a week of our arrival.

Noise Level: from tenants is pretty minimal. The water is really loud, considering that my apartment gets the sound in stereo from the windows. This noise costs an extra 50 dollars a month.

Overall Rating: I would not live here again if I had a choice in the matter. They are raising our rent from 1365 to 1455 after only 12 months. The way that the Irvine Company decides appropriate rent increases, is by evaluating the income of all renters within the city, devising a median income, and then raising the rent appropriatley. This means that they intend on negating any wage increases you gain at work by taking what would be your surplus income by raising your rent. Most areas will raise your rent, because your standard of living has increased; meaning that they are new viable locations built within your lease that would attract people to live in the area, ie: new schools, malls, movies, musuems etc. Nothing like this is ever built in Irvine.