The Reserve

I called to ask some questions about applying in January. A man (don’t remember his name) told me apartments were based on a first-​come-​first-​serve basis. My friends and I wanted to move from out of state in January and the man told me to fill out an application, if we got approved we had to sign a lease and then we would be able to get a three bedroom on January 1^st. Seemed easy.
I called a week later to check my status. I asked to speak with a leasing professional and a man said he could help. He said my app, along with my friends’ apps were all approved. I had to call the next morning for someone to email me a lease and I could sign that morning.
The next morning I called and said someone would call back (I’ve called this place about 5 or 6 times altogether because most people who work there aren’t authorized to help with leases). A woman called and said I was denied because I said I had a misdemeanor. I WAS BEING HONEST. They said they don’t even do background checks!!! (Click no on the app) So I explained to her that someone approved me and she said that the professional leasing agents were all women and that she had no clue who the guy was. :|
So my friend was approved and they told him that they wouldn’t even accept an app for January until December! They don’t even have their information together.
It seemed like a nice place to start out at but tbh, these people ARE NOT ON THE SAME PAGE. They have all information mixed up and the people that work there apparently lie to applicants. Now that I now how they work, I will never give them the slightest chance. I’ll definitely try ro deter people from applying because their service is completely shitty.
Imagine if I would have booked my flight only to be turned down. Smh. Not even worth the hassle. look elsewhere!

I am a full time graduate student. During the first year that I lived at The Reserve (summer 2013-​summer 2014), I did not have any complaints. I felt that the property was safe, secure, and the few maintenance issues that I had were solved in a timely fashion, which I appreciate, since I took my apartment as-​is.
During my second year living here (summer 2014-​summer 2015), I experienced many problems. I was served with a notice to remove a dog that I did not have (there was dog hair on a blanket that my then roommate had brought from his parents’ house), and two eviction notices for not paying rent on time (one check was stuck inside of the rent box, and another time they did not read a check properly and deposited the rent in another resident’s account). The management also claimed that they could not do much about the neighbors who played music so loud that the walls shook. That was settled via other means. Upon moving out, I was charged with a cleaning fee that I successfully disputed. I received an apology for some of these things, however I am not sure about the legality of their practices, especially considering that their notices are not in agreement with the lease, which I have read through-​and-​through.
I will conclude with this, I still think the property is nice, and convenient. The staff is mostly friendly and helpful. However, if you choose to live here, keep all of your bank statements and know your lease. Keep copies of your notices. Protect yourself from a potential debacle.

I’ll put my conclusion in the beginning, DO NOT LIVE IN THE RESEAVE ON 31ST STREET! This apartment is nothing more than a crappy apartment camouflaged with good-​looking features, I have lived here for only half a year and am waiting desperately for my lease to end.
To make it easier, I’ll quote the slogan on their website and tell you the truths.
1. «Live large a…» CHEAT! I have lived in the Jayhawk Tower, Park 25 and West Hill, I also have friends living in apartments like Meadowbrook. The Reserve is by no means large compared to all these apartments. As a matter of fact, their apartments are so poorly designed that it’s really crowded in bedroom and washroom, where you’ll spend most of your time.
2. «These apartments serve students…» BAD! Since a vast majority of this apartment is filled with college students, mostly freshmen (there’s no way you’ll choose to live here for any more than one year), there’ll be parties going on every single weekend, with people roaring and extremely loud music; to make matters worse, the insulation of these apartments is merely more than nothing. I constantly have difficulty to sleep during weekends because of this noise EVERY WEEK.
3. «Feel comfortable in your fully furnished apartment…» CHEAT! First of all, the furniture here is very bad in terms of both quality and design. I sometimes even doubt that they bought some dumped steel tubes and made these. The desk can barely hold a laptop, the drawers cannot hold more than 10 shirts, and to make matters worse, there’s no space for your own furniture. Secondly, the insulation of these apartment is so bad that noise penetrates easily, as I mentioned before, and also, in winter and summer, your air conditioner will basically be working all the time, resulting in constant noise and considerably more cost for power; besides, their AC system is so poorly designed that one bedroom will be excessively air conditioned while one is not cooled or warmed at all. Thirdly, other utilities they have SUCK. Parking spots are so narrow, only after parking four days here, all four doors of my car was hit by other cars and the paint was scratched off, which made me to pay additional money for a car port. Internet is extremely slow and can be not available over weekends, and since the apartments are half outside of the town, most Internet providers don’t cover this area.
4. «We make it easy for you!» CHEAT! They don’t make anything easy for you; they only make you easy to be managed by them. They don’t care if you enjoy their crappy apartments, they only want to make sure you are not causing them «troubles». They made the regulations such that you basically will be violating one of them or two as long as you live here. So when you have any complaint, they will come back to you and try their best to charge you. When I moved in, the mattress I had was in really bad shape and would make loud noise even when I made the slightest movement on it, I send a maintenance request to the office, and they denied it because «they don’t have any mattress for me»; I send it again, and they ignored it for almost half a year, and soon afterwards, they tried all excuses to charge me for that mattress.
5. «Live a lifestyle you can brag BIG about to your friends, with amenities like a 24-​hour fitness center, pool with hot tub, tanning bed, basketball and sand volleyball courts, and a computer lab with free printing.» CHEAT! While they do have a fitness center, it receives very little maintenance, if any; the equipment are in very bad shape, moreover, given its condensed population, a fitness center no larger than a living room is definitely not something I would brag about.
6. «We’re also conveniently located on the KU bus route.» CHEAT! It takes you more around half an hour to get to campus, depending which department you’re in. As a matter of fact, if you drive through the other gate, you can see the sign of «City of Lawrence Limit». And it takes even longer to get back from school because the bus route. Just imagine spending nearly 10% of your day time on a bus. I would recommend buying a car if you still make up your mind to live here.
7. «The apartments are owned and managed by blahblah, a professional provider of premier off-​campus student housing communities throughout the nation.» Their manager is RUDE, at least the fat guy I talked with, I was arguing about a very unreasonable penalty they charged me, and after no more than two minutes, the manager actually started to yell at me and literally kicked me out of his office.

Do NOT live at the Reserve!
This apartment complex is marketed towards kids in their first few years of college, usually straight out of the dorms. They do have a nice pool, hot tub, fitness center, free printing, free internet and cheap rent. They make it sound pretty sweet and are successful at getting parents to stick their kids there for college.
Why you shouldn’t fall for it: Most of these kids are in their first apartment and are naïve, and the management knows it. I felt like they were constantly taking advantage of us, finding ways to charge us extra fees. Cheap rent doesn’t matter when you’re constantly being charged stupid little fees.
The free internet is supposed to be high-​speed, but doesn’t even work half the time. It is slow and goes in and out, especially in the evenings when everyone is on. They also make you register your computer, so if you refuse to pay one of their stupid fees they shut off your internet.
They treat the apartments like a dorm, not a private apartment. We felt like they were making excuses to enter our apartment, sometimes with little or no notice, to look for something we were doing wrong that they could fine us for. They entered for «preventative maintenance.» WTF is preventative maintenance? Our fire alarm was broken, but apparently that isn’t included in «preventative maintenance» because they didn’t fix it.
They cheap out on everything. The interior looks nice, but upon closer inspection they have used the cheapest possible materials. Our electric bill was astronomical every month because of the cheap insulation and seals on the windows. I could feel the cold through the wall in my bedroom.
I know I’m being harsh, but I really regret living there.