I lived in Florida Towers for 3 years and then Col...

I lived in Florida Towers for 3 years and then College Plaza for a year. Throughout these years, noise was a HUGE problem in both apartment buildings. I slept with ear plugs in many nights and still could hear the music from the bar/frat house loud and clearly. I'm not sure if the noise ordinance ever passed for this area but while I lived here, there wasn't one so if you reported to the police they couldn't do anything.

Car safety is another problem since my car was vandalized twice. Once in the FT parking lot and once in the lot behind Jefferson Arms. Park in the underground garage if you live here. It's sketchy but the safest place for your car since there is (supposedly) working cameras.

Clothes come out of the washing machine soaking wet and not even hell could dry them, and especially not the dryers here. I would suggest going to a laundromat that has good reviews instead of wasting $1.50 for a broken washing machine. (this was an issue with multiple washing machines on the property)

FT did have some nice landscaping but this was offset by the smell of dog urine in all of the stairwells and dog poo in the grass.

The pools for both buildings seem like a nice amenity until you get woken up at 2am from a group of non-residents partying in it (insert ear plugs at this point). And at times the pool had a yellow/green hue to it. I'm no pool expert but something tells me that's not proper pool water color.

I shared both of my apartments with 3 families of roaches. Too bad they didn't help out with the rent. The Orkin man came so often that it was easy to make chit chat while he did his pest business.

The management goes through staff changes every year or two and most of the time you'll end up knowing more about the apartments than they will. Be wary because they have many little rules that will forfeit your security deposit if you don't read the fine print. Maintenance is nice though! Respond quickly (same day kind of thing) and usually fixed the issue.

With all of that being said, if you MUST live here due to the proximity to campus or how cheap it is compared to Onyx and other nearby apartments, here are some tips to make it a little easier. If you're interested in Florida Towers, choose an apartment that is closest to the law school and farthest from the bar (google map it). If you're interested in living at College Plaza, choose an even numbered apartment on the 2nd - 4th floors. This will look out towards the downtown area and away from the SAE frat house. Don't live in the basement/first floor of College Plaza. It looks like a dungeon and not very inviting unless you're into that. Also, if you're interested in Jefferson Arms, choose an apartment that is either in the hallway or looks out to the law school. The other issues I talked about in the review you can't really get away from, my condolences.