Ponderosa Village Apartments

The staff is helpful, the location is great, but the rent kept increasing, and after paying the electricity bills, your monthly rent will be 800 dollars per month if you live in a beta shared which means you have a roommate. Don't lock your bike out on the property, it can be easily stolen even though this is a gated community. Keep your bike in your apartment. Wifi is unstable, so be prepared to have a long ethernet cable. Rooms are unfurnished, so you need to get some basic furniture. If you come in July when a lot of people have just moved out, you may be able to find some very nice free furniture lying next to the dumpster. You can also contact GSA for some donated furniture for free. Blind is useless, you may want a dark black cloth on top of the blind. Washer and drying and dishwasher are included in every unit, which is nice. They don't offer tours so you can only look at the floor plans on their website. No pets are allowed on the property either. Parking is not included so you have to contact the parking service to get parking separately. The football stadium and the railroad are very close by so it will be a nightmare whenever there are football games at night if you are trying to sleep before 11pm.

There is a lack of grounds maintenance. Garbage in the courtyard is often overflowing. We do not have enough recycling bins for the tenants, and this leads to overflow. Staff does not clean up overflow. Instead choosing to send threatening emails to tenants saying they will fine is if they find our recycling in the lot. Which is both an unreliable method of determining how the waste came to be in the lot, and we weaponizing their own poor management against tenants. Landlords in Nevada are responsible and required to provide a clean waste receptacle area that does not attract pests and wildlife. This is not the case here, and when tenants complain, they take no responsibility.

My own unit was not prepared for me upon move in. Filthy carpets, nails still in walls and drains clogged. Very disappointing.

There is no storage either. No pantry, no linen closets, no coat closets- nothing a typical apartment should include. Given the rent we pay and the fact that we also are required to pay for parking it is also disappointing.

Tenants should not have to pay to park at there residence. Also there is no safe pathway from the upper orange lot to the complex. Myself and my child have fallen multiple times. The cost of the yellow lot is so high that it is not an option.

Although rent has been raised there have been zero improvements here. Where is this money going?

Doesn't communicate effectively with residents; staff are rude and uninformed; dog poop and pigeon poop everywhere despite them saying it would be cleaned (waited almost 2 months for them to show up). Mail packages from USPS cannot be delivered and are only available for pickup from a USPS location about 4 miles north of campus - too far to walk and not every resident owns a car.

The perk is you can walk to class or work as a graduate student. Great for those without cars! But I’d you do have a car you still need to buy a UNR parking pass and since the complex is right next to the sports fields every day and night you hear loud sports practices occurring. The large football and baseball games interrupt quiet studying. The walls here are also very thin so be prepared to hear your neighbors.

it is safe for student housing and close to campus.

Very expensive and rent is being increased despite no stipend increase for students

For the most part, Ponderosa Village is a great place for graduate students and faculty to live when attending UNR. The rent is the most affordable I was able to find for a one bedroom apartment, the floor plan has plenty of space, and since it's on campus and you can walk most places, you can save money on gas and car insurance. The downsides include the kitchen is quite small, maintenance may be needed pretty often depending on your luck (I haven't had to call maintenance but my neighbors have several times), and there is a trash problem. The trash problem isn't due to the management mind you, they're trying there best to handle the situation, it just comes down to residents being negligent and leaving their garbage next to the dumpster without putting it inside. Overall, I'm very happy at Ponderosa Village. There are a few things that need improving, namely the trash problem and volume of maintenance requests for some residents, but it's an excellent place for graduate students and faculty.

The apartments are too expensive for grad students who do not have a partner or roommate who works. A one bedroom is completely out of reach for a single person on a GA stipend. They no longer allow pets for new tenants. You have to pay about $600 per year if you want to park in the lot closest to the apartment complex. We have functional mailboxes now, but in my experience, you will want to get a P.O. box as a backup. There have been a lot of issues with USPS recognizing our addresses.

Everything is ok except 2 things:

First there is only one way to enter. I mean when coming from JCSU and other places, we have to cross the soil path. This is also when we want to park our car in the upper parking. There is no asphalt or walking pathways which is really bad and inappropriate.

Secondly, as an international student, I think they would be far better if the units were furnished. International students have difficulty and have to stay at least 2 weeks in other students space until the time they purchase their initial living must haves.

Building structures cheaply constructed. Right next to a train on Evans which will blow its horn at 2 am. Expensive relative to what grad students are paid. Management does not keep accurate records of anything, e.g. they claimed they had no record of my security deposit after I had lived there for four years. I thought being on campus, there might be more community, but I guess they work grad students so much for so little pay, no one has time to meet fellow students. Consequently, the value of living on campus is reduced.

Big apartment for cheap. However, it's a bit dirty and you have to walk through dirt and mud to get anywhere