The Local Downtown

Living here was one of the worst decisions I have ever made. Upon move in my toilet was broken and the apartment was dirty and smelled gross, something that both me and my roommate noted. There was noticeable damages, mold, and dead cockroaches in each room. Within a few days we began to find live cockroaches and this continued throughout our entire lease, with no relief after exterminators sprayed. A few months in I noticed that they had been charging me for two separate insurances, my own, and their company’s, without telling me. When I attempted to have this resolved they passed me around on the phone and claimed it was none of their problems until eventually I just cancelled my own insurance and used theirs. On October 1st, maintenance showed up unannounced, stating that they needed to fix a faulty pipe. They drilled a hole from my roommates bathroom into my closet and left that hole open for the rest of my lease (until July) despite multiple pleas to have them come fix it and attempts to reach out to the property manager. They are now attempting to charge me hundreds of dollars for this. My roommate ended up moving out due to the distress caused by the bugs and the disgusting state of the apartment and her room was vacant for several months. During this time, I called several times, begging them to please let me know when they plan on moving someone in, and they assured me they would. They did not. I was awoken one day by a woman attempting to beat down my door because the deadbolt was locked, so I called the front office to send someone upstairs to see who this intruder was. This is when they literally said “Oh, that’s your new roommate, you didn’t know?” I did not know this woman and they made no attempts to contact me whatsoever to inform me that someone was moving in so I had time to prepare. Please save your mental and physical health and do not live here.

There’s better places to live. Nothing is good quality. The elevator is extremely slow. The pool has been unusable for years. The walls are extremely thin (both interior and exterior) so you can hear everything outside and everything your roommates and neighbors are doing. My neighbors like to give me noise complaints for doing literally anything ever, which then results in me getting fined. The internet sucks (I didn’t even have internet for the first month or so of living here). The parking garage is always empty but they won’t give me a parking space, which has cost me hundreds of dollars in parking tickets since I’m forced to park on the street. I’ve been on the “waitlist” for parking since March 2022. If you have guests, you have to go downstairs to let them into the building, which sucks because the elevator takes 10 years to get to your floor. The gym is nice though.

I can't imagine a better living experience for my first time renting an apartment. The Local Downtown has awesome amenities like a huge gym, saunas, and a study center with free printing! The appliances in my unit are so nice and I have a ton of space. I can walk to TXST, the Square, or the grocery store in less than 5 minutes. The best part is you get all of this at a great price, which is huge for a broke student like me. I'm excited to stay here another year.

Going on my 3rd year here and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else in San Marcos while going to school!