The following review of Museum Place Apartments in Portland, Oregon is all "in my opinion."
I cannot rate Museum place favorably. This is a very problematic neighborhood. Point blank: this is bum/homeless central down on the streets and sidewalks below these apartments. The homeless spend their time gathering cans and bottles and then show up at the Safeway bottle return that's on the first floor of this apartment building. There's constantly trash and glass on the sidewalk; it's actually a safety hazard and people have been hurt from it. It's a danger to pets. Worst, when they do clean it up, they don't even sweep it up, they just blow it into the street with a pressure washer. Glass generally disappears because it turned to dust from people or vehicles crushing it. At least one car has been broken into in the parking garage. There's a constant stream of panhandlers and homeless people sitting on the sidewalks begging, or just resting themselves on the planters and building ledges. A lot of these homeless folks have serious mental health issues. And don't be fooled by so-called security: they are not full time, it's roaming, unarmed security for the area. Security also appears to around far less on the weekends.
While Museum Place is pet friendly, taking your dog out to the bathroom is no easy or safe task. As mentioned, you have to navigate homeless sitting on the sidewalks with their Pit Bulls, you have the broken glass on the sidewalks, and when you finally get to the park two blocks away, a mentally ill, alcoholic, schizophrenic just might cuss you out or scream at you. The Park Platz is full of homeless people dealing drugs and using the benches as a campground.
I also haven't been impressed with frequent notices being stuck on doors about what are described as "maintenance inspections." These are "we're entering your apartment whether you are there or not" type notices. Usually they have a 48 hour timeline. There's been two of these in the last couple of months. The first advertised "maintenance inspection" consisted of what basically looked like a bunch of Hedge Fund guys in suits showing up. That was followed shortly later by a notice on doors that the building had been sold and the online rental portal was now shutdown. The second recent 48-hour notice for an "annual sprinkler inspection" was followed the next day by an email saying "sorry, we changed our minds, we'll do it at a later date." Also keep in mind these inspection notices say something like "we'll be inspecting your apartment sometime between 9 and 5, and we will not make appointments, or exceptions." This is the kinds of stuff that goes on here. They don't publish any type of annual inspection dates to my knowledge, so those doctor or other appointments you made months ago mean nothing to management here.
Moving on to the apartment interiors. Whoever painted my unit only painted as high on the 10 foot ceiling as the roller would reach. The ceilings are concrete that's been painted; it's not pleasant to look at. The heating/cooling unit is similar to what's in a motel room, a window unit. During days that hit the mid 90s it was unable to cool the apartment below around 75 degrees, and runs continuously. Having a window unit like this creates a cooler environment around that unit, but not the rest of the apartment. The kitchen is hot. The exterior windows are quite dirty and grimy and have never been washed since I've lived here. The mini-blind fins are wrinkled and bent. The black formica countertops are a hideous color and are impossible to keep looking decent. My appliances look like they were sold at a scratch and dent sale. The glass stove top is very scratched and awful looking.
The common areas appear to get cleaned once a week. Our hallway carpet is frequently dirty.
I think the staff is friendly, but I only rated them a three because they are doing nothing to fix the obvious problem areas I pointed it. I don't think anybody misses Katie, the former manager.
So while people talk about Museum Place being convenient: it is. The homeless have everything they need. They have lots of nearby facilities to feed them or help with their needs; they have water fountains in the Park Platz to drink from; they have a bathroom in the Park Platz to use for their drug injections; they have the dirty Safeway store (downstairs) to beg on the sidewalks; and they have the Safeway can and bottle return to get income. What the Museum Place renters are getting out of this deal is highly debatable. I'm sick of it, although it would be tolerable if there was full-time, active cleaning going on to keep up with the mess, and full-time security to keep the homeless off the property.
