Thunderbird Apartments

If you work for either the state or the city, this is a good place to live. You’ll have a 10 minute walking commute to work. The rent is low for this area. After 5 and on weekends, this neighbourhood is very quiet.
The units are large, and your neighbours are few. Bus stops for routes 12 and 13 are a short walk away. Grocery and department stores are 15 minutes from the front door if you walk there. Plenty of parking.
The landlord is flexible and reasonable. Make a good faith effort to clean the unit and you’ll get your deposit back. They even prorated my last month’s rent when I moved out before my lease was up, so I could go back to college.
The downsides: if you lock yourself out, the landlord will charge you a ton of money to let you back into the unit. A locksmith is cheaper. Tumwater gets a pretty intense amount of rain, especially in winter. That means mold and mildew. The windows are single pane glass, so you need to have a dehumidifier if you don’t want the unit to become infested.
If you have a dehumidifier, you should be fine. I’d advise making spare keys over at the Home Depot, and put em someplace you can get to if you get locked out.

My roommate and I moved in to the Thunderbird Apartments around summer of 2013. In the summertime, the apartment was nice and cool, as our unit was in the shade. However, once winter rolled around, we discovered that we had mold. Not just a little in the bathroom, mind you, but in both corners of the front room, dining room, bathroom, and two walls of the bedroom. The windows in this place are the same windows that were originally installed when the apartment was built in the eighties. Same with the carpet. The owner doesn’t seem to want to update anything about the property.
When we called the property manager to alert them of the mold situation, and while she was polite about it, we were told that it was common, and that they wouldn’t do anything about it — that it was a «tenant responsibility». We’ve been cleaning up mold pretty constantly.
Also, the parking lot has a ton of giant puddles when it rains. They seem to drain toward the building. Probably where all the mold is coming from. The laundry room is also nothing to write home about. The washers are fine, but the dryers will only dry your clothes to about 85% before you have to put in another $ 1.25 for a new cycle.
There were a few good things about living here. The neighbors were nice (from what I have met) and the community was relatively quiet. The property itself is in town and conveniently located. Also, it’s pretty affordable. We only paid $ 675/​month for a two bedroom (not including electric/​internet/​cable).
Unfortunately, we are finding ourself counting down the days until our lease ends. I can’t say that I would recommend living here unless you really enjoy living among/​cleaning up mold.