amandac777 | (no subject)

Does anyone know how much weight you should give online apartment ratings? I've been searching through apartments in the area where I'll be teaching next fall, and I'm seeing lots of places that look nice or reasonable. And then I check the reviews (mainly at apartmentratings.com), and find that apparently every apartment in the region is pest-infested, crime-ridden, falling apart, missing most advertised amenities, and staffed by assholes.

I need to live somewhere. The "nicer" areas in the region are generally way the hell out of my price range (which isn't that low!), and I'd strongly prefer to live within a 15-minute drive, at most. I'm an utter wuss about safety, in particular. Any tips on how to look more effectively? Random comfort, perhaps? Offers of a spare room?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If you're worried about crime, there are better ways to figure out if there's a lot of it in that area: CrimeMapping.

Otherwise, I wouldn't give too much weight to online reviews. Mostly, people write a review when they want to bitch about something, so for every one negative review, there are probably at least a dozen people who had nothing bad to say about that same place.

Thanks for the link, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to cover Maryland. I know there are other ways of finding crime stats; I just need to figure out how to use them properly. (I have managed to figure out enough to terrify myself - based on stats from the last *week*.)

Yeah, I'm trying to take that balance into account, and point out to myself that an honest review of the place I've lived comfortably for the last 8 years would be mediocre to poor.