Apartment Review for Huguenot Apartments - Richmond, VA

I moved to these apartments in 2007. I had read many bad reviews but I felt that the square footage along with the price which includes gas utilities would outweigh the negative commentaries I'd read. This has been a mixed bag for me. I got a 3 bedroom apartment so that I could have a home office (to write, edit and do other home stuff)and to have a spare room should any friends/family choose to visit once in a while. I figured that with the extra rooms I could also use them as storage space. This has not been the case entirely. Every time they come in to inspect (Spring & Fall) I get written up and have a notice on my door to clean up or else. It seems as if every time I'm switching out my summer clothing for my winter and vice versa is when they do the inspection and in the fall inspection time I'm also getting out Christmas stuff (I shop year round so I have boxes for each family/individual). This is one headache I have with them. The other is the noise. I read from someone else who has lived there since 2007 that they haven't experienced it. They must live on a 2nd floor because it's horrible on the first floor. My neighbors have a child who is probably about 9 or 10 years old. She must also be home schooled because I never see her leave with the other kids in the building for school. They also let child run, jump and stay up to all sorts of ridiculous hours of the night. I have to get up NLT 7:00 am (which is later than many but still in the morning, and I'm NOT really a morning person by choice). I try to get into bed to wind down by NLT 10:15-10:30. The people above me stomp like a herd of elephants and the child runs and JUMPS into the Master Bedroom (MBR) above my bed. Just last night alone I got home at 6:30 pm and went to work quietly in my office. I tried to concentrate on reading research things on the Internet and the whole time from the time I walked into my apartment till finally blowing up at 8:10 pm this child ran and jumped and ran and jumped. Initially I tried to talk to them directly about holding the noise down from at least 10:00 pm at night till 7:00 am. They make all kinds of excuses. After getting angrier and angrier about this I finally started writing letters of complaint to the management. All they do is send a letter to remind them to read the lease about how everyone is entitled to peace and quiet in their apartments. These people AND management are oblivious! It's been 10 letters later and last night was just as noisy as ever. Management does NOTHING more than empty words because they have so many empty apartments. When there were other kids in the building (that moved last summer to a house) all the kids would play in the common hallway. They would run, jump and when the one former neighbor's black cat would get out once in a while...they would all stampede up the stairs screaming and slamming into their apartments. There is a woman who lives under the stairs who I would say is in her late 70's and I can only imagine how she feels. NOISE was an issue from day one. On my check list I had to turn in w/in the first few days I had written that the noise over the MBR was bad and that my boyfriend would be willing to put up sound proofing onto the ceiling. I got a nasty gram immediately telling me I had better not or I would be in big trouble. Then there is the free gas heat etc. There are signs posted on both the front and laundry room doors about keeping the doors to the common area shut at all times. They are constantly left open so in the winter the hall way gets cold which means that with my living right next to the laundry room I have to turn my heat up higher to stay warm (insulation is also almost non-existent...I put up a weather strip around my front door but cold air permeates around the patio door despite having lined drapes across the whole way). In the summer I have to spend more money on AC because the hallway gets hot from the doors being left open constantly. We had our first major snow in years and it made an already difficult parking even worse because the snow was plowed up toward the backs of the cars or in front if the space was empty at the time of plowing and you had to get your car over a mound of snow in order to park close to the building. There were computer printed notices of icy sidewalks but for 3 days in a row I almost fell because they did not salt or sand the walks...just warned of them being icy. When weather is not bad the parking is so-so. Some people have 2 cars (I have one and periodically my b/f visits and parks his a little further down so as not to take up the front spaces). We have a handicapped space (I guess for the elderly lady who doesn't drive herself but has family that will come take her out). Right now the building of 8 apartments has only five of them filled. Because of this, parking isn't bad (unless people have guests taking up the spaces which happens frequently)...but when we had more of the units filled there was many a night I would have to go park across the street in the extra spots. The people who are doing the best jobs are the maintenance people. They do come fairly quickly to fix problems, especially if it's an emergency (I had water pouring into my apartment the first year I moved in from the 2nd floor). The maintenance folks are courteous and friendly and seem to care about the tenants. There are also cleaners who will clean the common areas and they seem to do a good job as well. The staff who work FOR the manager/owners are friendly and seem pleasant but I haven't got much good to say about the manager/owners so I'll leave it at that. Overall I'm looking to see if I can move out of there sometime next year. I've had it with the noise problem and lack of effort on management's behalf to resolve the issue. And if it continues I will look into legally getting out of my renewed lease.