The Pines Apartments

I lived here over the summer and as there are not many reviews, thought it would be useful for others. 1. The location - Not the most convenient. There is a very good Safeway within walking distance. Walnut creek as a whole is a pretty safe neighborhood and I have come home at nights ( This definitely depends on the route you take as well - be warned some paths do not have footpath and should be avoided at night ). 2. Amenities - You pay what you get. The pool is ok for people going for a swim and was not super crowded. They had 4 washers and dryers and 2 of the dryers were not working for a couple of months. We got one uncovered parking spot. 3. Activities - If you are into biking/running the iron horse trail is absolutely amazing and is easily accessible. This is more about walnut creek so I guess they have an amazing public library and park, One lively bar and a lot of good restaurants and a movie theater. 4. Management - They seemed reasonable. Not the fastest to respond but they got the work done. We had trouble with the lock not locking properly, dirty apartment before move in and insufficient cooling in the fridge. Lock issue was temporarily fixed, it went to unlockable near the end of the lease and we didn't care. The fridges cooling system was broken so you couldn't set it manually, so they sent a who used a screwdriver to set it a cooler temperature and was working for the rest of the stay and they cleaned out the balcony fast. 5. Issues - there was a change of management and they took their sweet time issuing the refund check and they charged 180$ for cleaning fees when we left, though it was really well maintained ( should have trashed it when leaving ,I suppose). They also managed to somehow ”lose” the refund check twice before we finally got it. They did charge 100 dollars per month for water and trash alone as utilities ( read the fine print in lease ) and the Ac in the apartment was pretty bad wherein we got high electricity bills but bad cooling. 5. Verdict - Pay a little more and get a better apartment (tons nearby with centralized air). P.S : we paid 2863$ for a 2b2b apt for a 3 mo sublease in the Summer of 2017. 6. Tip 1 - Visit xfinity store and get wifi ( easy to setup on own ) if you are on a tight budget. Tip 2- Make sure your apartment is not facing the sun in the summer else it's gonna get pretty hot ( this should be obvious , but I hated living in my apartment because of this ). Feel free to upvote if you found this helpful.