Apartment Review for Archstone Newport Village - Alexandria, VA

I have lived in four different places in three different states and Archstone is far and away the worst. Their staff is completely incompetent and condescending. They have difficulty grasping even the simplest of concepts. They go out of their way NOT to accomodate the needs of their residents. They are currently using a utilities system that I cannot imagine would be legal anywhere else but in northern VA (NOVA has no regulations or apartment boards to handle and disputes, we called everyone imagineable and were told our only recourse was to file suit against archstone on our own. On a side note I have lived in New York and Ohio and would also strongly suggest avoiding Northen Virginia if at all possible.)The way Archstone charges its utilites is by taking ONE reading for the entire building and then dividing it up between the buildings occupants regardless of how much each individual unit may have used. Archstone has ridiculous parking policies and if you ever plan on having guests over also plan on driving 30 minutes to pick their vehicle up from an out of the way tow lot. There is very little guest parking, despite the fact that there is always open resident parking not in use. Tows are not done by request or complaint, even if every resident has a place to park your guests vehicle will still be towed if its in a resident spot and all guest spots are filled. Archstone obviously is getting a kick back from the tow company at the inconveinece and expense of its residents and their friends and family. Another lovely fact about the towing policy is that they tow almost every night, in the middle of the night, setting off car alarm after car alarm as they tow with no care that they are waking up their over paying residents who have to go to work in the morning. They are not towing to aide the residents, strictly as a manner of padding their own pockets. If you have a company car with any sort of decals or lettering on the side you will not be allowed to park your vehicle on the grounds of the apt complex even if this is your only vehicle. Have fun walking 1-2 miles up and down a hill to your car every time you need to go out! I know I did. Despite signs that tell residents to clean up after their dogs, the majority dont. I am constantly weaving in and out of piles of crap when I walk my dog(who I clean up after). It is disgusting and unsanitray yet archstone does absolutely nothing to enforce this policy because they can not tow your dog and make money in the process. As far as security goes, there is none and the parking lots are dimly lit at best. The maintenance staff is about the only thing here that is not horrible but archstone makes horrible sub contracting decisions. They recently paved the entire parking lot and now every time it rains the complex is EXTREMELY slippery and they have been forced to put up warning signs as a result. They also have work done at hours that any moron would realize is going to upset residents. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND would give the ok to JACKHAMMERING AT 8:30AM ON A SATURDAY MORNING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although its not much different than every day at Archstone, with their paper thin walls. The apartments are nice if you want to hear every time the people above you take a step or next to you turn on the tv. Please unless you want to live in the worst place on earth AVOID ARCHSTONE AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!!!!! One last thing, DO NOT!!!! sign up for archstones website. Upon doing so you have given them the ok to hide cookies in your computer to monitor the websites you go to and any information entered while online. You can find this in small print on their website somewhere if you dont beleive me. According to archstone this is so they can learn what their residents want and better serve them. Trust me, that is a crock. I have told them right to their faces exactly what I want and how they could better serve myself and the other residents. They could care less. I encourage you to check out any other apartment rating sites, you will find tons of poor reviews for archstone, not only in Alexandria, but across northern Va. The last thing I just remembered before I submitted this. Not to long ago there was a couple of vehicles stolen from the archstone complex. Obviously residents put up signs asking for any information and to warn other residents to be on the lookout. Archstone staff took all of these signs down. Rather than inform their residents to be on the lookout and watch for their own safety, Archstone prefered to try to cover up the fact that the thefts were even occuring so they wouldnt look bad.