How do YOU find a quiet apartment to rent?

[Gauss44]

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Just wondering what sorts of tips you have for finding and ensuring that an apartment you're about to rent will be quiet?

 

[Boolean]

Ask the neighbors.

 

[Frostbite22]

I made sure to not live directly on campus in undergrad. I lived about an 8-10 minute bike ride. Also I asked and they had a strict no tolerance for it. I actually had to pay more of a deposit for being a college student. It was annoying but I never heard any crazy parties. Also try to avoid places that strictly advertise to college kids and younger adults. Where I lived there were some college kids but mostly middle age to elderly couples.

 

[alt12345]

It sounds bad, but I think the best method is to drive around the places you are looking at (during the day and at night) and look for signs of noisy neighborhoods. An area with four guys in tanks walking around drunk is a lot more likely to be noisy than one with a mother walking her dog.

 

[Thales]

It sounds bad, but I think the best method is to drive around the places you are looking at (during the day and at night) and look for signs of noisy neighborhoods. An area with four guys in tanks walking around drunk is a lot more likely to be noisy than one with a mother walking her dog.

This.

Visit at different times and check out the neighborhood. I'd even suggest looking at any police reports for the area. Finally, try going into the area during a notorious party time/day/holiday. That being said, you can still get screwed. I did all of this and the leasing office had a zero tolerance policy, my upstairs neighbor was a nightmare. Their method of dealing with the situation was to relocate me near some train tracks- the sad part was it was more peaceful having a train come by 4x a day.

 

[NickNaylor]

This.

Visit at different times and check out the neighborhood. I'd even suggest looking at any police reports for the area. Finally, try going into the area during a notorious party time/day/holiday. That being said, you can still get screwed. I did all of this and the leasing office had a zero tolerance policy, my upstairs neighbor was a nightmare. Their method of dealing with the situation was to relocate me near some train tracks- the sad part was it was more peaceful having a train come by 4x a day.

Yup. My upstairs neighbors are a MS4 and his buddy, a PhD student. PhD student guy decides he wants to blast his music with a full sub in a building with extremely thin walls and floors for hours a day. Despite telling him this multiple times - and him knowing that I'm a med student - he continued to do it until he ultimately moved out. What can you do? Some people just suck.

I wish you the best and hope whatever info you get here helps, but unfortunately there's a good amount of luck that goes into this sort of thing.

 

[TreadLightly]

I made sure to not live directly on campus in undergrad. I lived about an 8-10 minute bike ride. Also I asked and they had a strict no tolerance for it. I actually had to pay more of a deposit for being a college student. It was annoying but I never heard any crazy parties. Also try to avoid places that strictly advertise to college kids and younger adults. Where I lived there were some college kids but mostly middle age to elderly couples.

Dang that sounds awful in a social sense. I would rather live on campus where I could easily hang out friends and just go off campus/to the library whenever I needed to seriously study. There are plenty of quiet places on campus where you can study and still be able to have fun where you live. Especially since you have a significant amount of free time when not studying that would be cool to spend with friends or other people.

 

[cs24]

Noise cancelling headphones. Big ones.

 

[CW 2010]

I'd make sure there are no little kids around. The couple downstairs had a baby and it cries all the time now! Also, even though it sounds boring, I would look for neighborhood where the majority of people are seniors and older adults. They don't have any loud parties and are in bed by 9 pm.

 

[TheShaker]

I'm planning to just go on a month to month lease to see what it's like before I commit.

 

[Kochanie]

Suburbs are always a safe bet.

 

[Frostbite22]

Dang that sounds awful in a social sense. I would rather live on campus where I could easily hang out friends and just go off campus/to the library whenever I needed to seriously study. There are plenty of quiet places on campus where you can study and still be able to have fun where you live. Especially since you have a significant amount of free time when not studying that would be cool to spend with friends or other people.

I guess I'm not the most social person. I mostly kept to myself besides hanging out with an occasional friend every now and again. I understand not everyone like that probably. Being near friends to me equated to not focusing on studying enough, but to each their own.

 

[Avicenna]

I like to use Zillow

 

[worfndata]

Friday night police type stakeout. Bring fast food and soda. Serious.

 

[EMDO2018]

Are you in the same city you want to find the apartment in?

 

[Gauss44]

Are you in the same city you want to find the apartment in?

I'm an hour away from it. I'm planning to move to one of those neighborhoods where everyone knows and gossips about everyone else. There's a chance that if I go to investigate the apartment too much, the neighbors including the realtor will be talking about it, or at least about the new stranger in the neighborhood. I'll just have to check on it in a tactful way. They might not know much about the apartment itself because I've been told that an international graduate student lived there last and kept to himself.

It's also an attic apartment (since I'm already trying to save money for medical school). So, I'm also wondering if it's properly insulated. There's one other weird thing about this apartment: It isn't mentioned on the town assessor's website. The other 2 units in the building are.