Trying to find QUIET, SAFE, housing

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Central Florida
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<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>So I'm a current UCF male freshman studying CompEng and I wanted to hear from you guys which are some off-campus housing places you've had positive experiences in. I'm looking to stay in one for the summer and fall. The things I'm looking for, ordered by priority, are:</p>

<p>-QUIET: I do most of my studying in my dorm as well as obviously, sleeping. I don't want to hear drunk people partying next to the pool at 2am on a school night. Or the cop sirens that come afterwards. Or dubstep.</p>

<p>-FAST INTERNET: I got used to Nike/Hercules' blazing fast 90mbps internet and I want/need someplace with speedy and reliable internet (doesn't have to be THAT fast though). If you've lived somewhere, please tell me how the internet is. I would love you if you went on speedtest.net and told me what you were getting for the download bandwidth (you don't need to do that though).</p>

<p>-SAFE: I'm bringing my car over and I don't want to wake up and see its wheels replaced with concrete bricks. It's a '99 Corolla so it doesn't receive a lot of attention, but still. Also, I'd like to be able to walk around late at night without worrying that I'm gonna get stabbed. I've enjoyed perfect safety during my stay at on-campus Nike/Hercules.</p>

<p>-DECENT BEDROOM SIZE: Since I'll be spending a lot of time in it, I'd like a bedroom that has enough room for a bed, a desk, cabinets, and maybe another desk/table.</p>

<p>I don't care in the least about amenities or other useless extras or living spaces (I'd rather have a bigger bedroom and a tiny living room). Also, I'm mainly looking for 4/4's in the price range of $500-650. No roaches/pests either. Tell me how the maintenance/management is.</p>

<p>My main problem is that for everyplace I think is kind of nice, I go to apartmentratings.com and I read unimaginable horror stories of every kind. It seems that no matter which place I pick, it's practically hell on earth. I don't know how much I should trust them, that's why I need you guys' opinion. </p>

<p>Also, right now I was going to stay at Towers over the summer. I know it's expensive but if it's the only quiet and safe place there is, then I have no other option. I'm sure that there must be somewhere else that's nice.</p>

<p>These are some of the places I've physically been to in order of how much I like them:</p>

<p>-The Village at Science Drive: Has a more quiet, suburban-type atmosphere. Sub-par amenities, not the cheapest and smaller living spaces, but ENORMOUS bedrooms! That fact alone makes it my top choice. However, I dislike the fact that the management is a bunch of stupid college kids and I read that there is only one security guard who basically just sits on his butt and does nothing. According to apartment ratings it's not safe because of that. I don't know how good the internet is or if there are pests.</p>

<p>-The Lofts: Has more life than the village and better amenities. The townhouse, 2-story design is pretty cool. The rooms are medium size and price about the same. When I talked to them, they said they only had 1 spot available. The surrounding area is not nearly as nice as the village, and the outside of the place is a little ugly so I'm worried it's in a bad neighborhood. Again, horror stories from apartment ratings. Don't know how internet is. I don't know if it's quiet.</p>

<p>-Sterling Central: Is right outside of campus. Nicest amenities, newest stuff. Atmosphere is hectic like the downtown of a city, so I doubt it would be quiet, especially since like all the buildings face the pool. The rooms are SUPER TINY and the price is HIGH. The kitchen is nice though, but I don't care at all. I pretty much already crossed this one off my list, but I just put it here for reference. Again, I don't know how the internet is, and I'm fairly certain it's a loud place.</p>

<p>So to recap: what I would like from you guys is to recommend me a place that fits the criteria I specified in the beginning or to tell me about a place that WOULD NEVER fit the criteria. Also, please evaluate my first impressions with the few places I've visited. I know it's being picky, but please only talk about a place if you've actually lived there. If you've stayed there often because of a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend I guess that would be OK too.</p>

<p>Thank you</p>

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<p>Hey this is kinda off topic but im an incoming freshman this fall and I picked Nike/Hercules as my top preference. How do you like living there? Is it worth sharing your space with a roommate two feet away? lol</p>

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<p>Nike/Hercules is GREAT. The furniture is nice, everything is clean and new, it’s always quiet, walls are well insulated (you will never go deaf even if the guy in the room next to you is playing rap at maximum possible volume, which never happens), and the internet is the fastest and most reliable you have probably ever experienced (no WiFi though, just ethernet so iPads are out of luck). If you have ANY problems, the RAs will try to help. Like a school nurse, they can’t do too much but they’ll work with you. Trust me, the housing is as nice as it gets. The only thing is that it’s sort of at the edge of campus and walking to the stadium (the farthest point you’ll probably go) will take 30 minutes each way. If you find yourself walking more than you want, you can learn how to longboard (as I did), which is exactly three times faster than walking. But most people I know just walk and you would certainly be fine, so don’t worry about it at all, just something to keep in mind. Overall, you should be looking forward to living here.</p>

<p>Now about sharing a room with someone. It’s super important to contact them early, as soon as you find out who they are, look them up on facebook and try calling them. If you do this, you will be on your road to an easy freshman year. Don’t be mysterious and not even know their name until move-in day. Have a conversation and find out who’s bringing a:</p>

<p>-TV
-Microwave
-Mini Fridge
-Printer
-Game systems
-Etc.</p>

<p>I highly recommend you guys only have one microwave and one printer to share, as more than that is just a waste of space. I know some people with two, and again it’s fine, but just a waste of precious space and money IMO. For the other things, you can (and sometimes you should) each have your own.</p>

<p>As for having someone physically four feet away from you, it’s not so bad. I’m a very private person but even then I was lucky and my roommate was a very nice, decent, neat guy and we literally had ZERO problems the entire year. And no, we didn’t ignore each other, it just worked out well. I don’t know anyone who has had major issues with their roommate, and I know quite a few people in my building. The biggest issues, and solutions are:</p>

<p>-SLEEP TIMES: This is easily #1. What often happens is you’re tired, you have a 7:30am class and you want to sleep but your roommate is doing homework on his laptop or worse, has a bunch of people over and they’re watching TV and laughing loudly. This can sometimes be tough. You have to let them know politely, but directly that you need to sleep and that those people have to go. This is something you should talk about with your roommate early on to avoid conflict. Also, your roommate (or yourself) might go to a friend’s dorm and hang out until 2am and then come back in the room when the other person sleeping. The nice thing to do is not turn on any of the lights unless absolutely necessary, quietly do whatever you need to do, and slip in to your bed making as little noise as possible. It’s likely that they might wake up, but they will notice that you are putting an effort not to wake them up which will let them forgive you.</p>

<p>-LOUD MUSIC/NOISE: If it’s a Wednesday night and the people at the room next door are playing music and talking loudly and it’s past 1am and it seems there’s no stopping them, just knock on their door and ask them if they could turn the volume down a little. Any reasonable person will understand and they’ll probably do something to keep the noise down. Also, it has the bonus side effect of being sort of a “party pooper”. In other words, once you go in their room and ask them politely to keep the noise down, everyone in there will realize how late it is and an awkward silence will ensue. Within 30mins the party/gathering will be over, guaranteed. If they are still somehow being total —holes, and are still going at it an hour later (never happened to me), just knock on the RA’s door and tell them there’s a noise problem and they will ask them to quiet down. If even that does nothing, then it’s time to call the cops. This should always be a last resort because you don’t want to be “that guy”, but if they are really that persistent, then there are no other options. Plus they are probably keeping a lot of other people from sleeping as well. Again, don’t be discouraged nothing like this has ever come close to happening to me or anyone I know.</p>

<p>I can’t think of any major ones, just those two. Also, you don’t need to have insane social skills to do anything that I’ve recommended–it’s pretty straightforward and common sense. Plus the other guy is in the same situation as you are. Just don’t avoid any problems, charge directly at them, and I promise you will be fine.</p>

<p>Oh and take the time to get to know other people on your floor as well. The people who I’m currently with are great and we’re almost like family, though I’m sure that’s doesn’t always happen. Just don’t be a stranger.</p>

<p>In summary, the secret to a successful roommate relationship is living by the GOLDEN RULE. </p>

<p>“One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.”</p>

<p>Have fun!</p>

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<p>mrratburn: I’m a mom of an incoming freshman daughter - I would love for her to live on-campus, but she and a couple of other incoming freshman friends want to try off-campus housing - I’ve read the reviews you are talking about on apartment reviews, and I spent a few hours bawling my eyes out last night as I am frightened out of my mind about off-campus living now, especially on a budget. I think their biggest beef with on-campus housing is the bedroom/bathroom ratio to residents. I need to get it in her head that safety and quiet is so much more important! She was shocked last night when I showed her some of those reviews -</p>

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<p>Just for reference this is something that someone else posted in another forum where I asked the same question:</p>

<p>"Never read, and forget all you ever read, at apartmentratings.com. It is a horrible site. Look up some of the places you know and you’ll see how inaccurate it is. One of the best places I’ve lived, which cost more per month than the mortgage of my 2k sqft house, had a horrible rating, mostly from crazy people who claimed the office was monsters and pirates. They were actually quite nice. I’ve seen people give a place one star because they had a bad neighbor or the gate was broken often.</p>

<p>Never read that site. </p>

<p>Yelp and Google Maps and all the apartment places have reviews, generally. You can talk to people who live there. A good ice breaker when talking to a stranger would be “How is maintenance here?”</p>

<p>That said, if you want to live around other students, the chances of noisy neighbors goes up. I’ve lived with hockey players upstairs before. Noise and roaches.</p>

<p>Call me shallow, but I’ll judge an apt complex on the quality of it’s parking lot. Cracks and oil are warning signs. Weeds in cracks…probably all the landscaping is shot. It’s not like the maint will only ignore that one thing."</p>

<p>Alright, two things:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Don’t worry about sharing the bathroom, unless they like to be in there for hours at a time, it’s fine. I’m sharing mine with three other kids (granted, they are guys) and never had a problem.</p></li>
<li><p>I’m beginning to trust apartmentratings.com less and less and that’s because:
A) What the guy above said.
B) You usually wouldn’t feel a need to post a review if you are satisfied with the place you’ve been in.
C) Some of the stuff they put is BS, or if you read carefully, you can tell what type of person the author is and why they are complaining.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Granted, even if you brush-off half of the complaints, you are still living in a hell-hole according to apartmentratings. So the best thing IMO is to list specific problems and see if multiple people are complaining about them. Also, like I said in the first post EVERY PLACE I LOOKED AT (which is nearly everyplace) had HORRIBLE posts–it’s not even mathematically possible that ALL of them are truly that bad.</p>

<p>One thing I did learn is that student housing is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from non-student housing. The same problems often occur in the former.</p>

<p>If your daughter is bringing her own roommates, it honestly can’t go that bad even in the worst circumstance. Being able to trust the people you’re coming with from the get-go already solves like half a million potential problems.</p>

<p>Just try going to some of those places and see which ones they like. As for the deal with apartmentratings.com, I don’t truly know. That’s the point of this thread, I need someone to tell me what the deal is with that website.</p>

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<p>I, too, thought it was odd that the ratings didn’t go above a 49% on apartment ratings. I will try the other apartments review searches. My daughter is planning on being very active in Marching Band, and it appears the shuttles to off-campus housing stop at 10 pm, which may not work well for her. I think she is going to stick with on-campus this fall. She also has re-visited that she doesn’t mind so much sharing a bathroom - not that big a deal after all.</p>

<p>I wish you luck in your search -</p>