Riverknoll How-to Guide
Hi everyone! After spending a year in Riverknoll, and knowing that I could find very little information about these apartments when originally researching them, I'd like to provide you all with a full tour of the space and a list of suggestions.
Link to video tour: https://youtube.com/shorts/gE4DxI4qXNk?is=oAoGv0TCThTx\_OEt
Some background info:
- Myself and two other roommates stayed in a 3-person unit (one double room, one single), which was one of the many unrenovated Riverknoll apartments. I personally stayed in the double with one other person.
- Other Riverknoll apartments can look quite different than ours---some are newly renovated, others (such as a 4-person unit) will have an entirely different layout.
Let's start with the tour!
Pictures 1, 2, 15, and 16: the double room
Don't be deceived by the ultrawide photos---this room is SMALL. To fit two people in there, my roommate and I were essentially forced to purchase loft beds. If you want any space to walk, I suggest you do the same and have a desk underneath the bed. The closet is shared and is an acceptable size, but you might need to supplement it with other clothing storage. The ceilings are only 8ft, so don't purchase a bed that's too tall. I suggest a bed below 70 inches in height; the shorter the better.
Pictures 3 and 4: the bathroom
It's a bathroom. Acceptable in size, but you'll definitely need some more storage. I recommend getting a set of hanging shelves for the door---that worked very well for us. Ours came with a shower curtain tensioning rod, but I'm honestly not sure if that's standard. This bathroom, and really the whole place, is a "landlord special." Everything has been done quickly and for cheap. The linoleum around our sink vanity, for instance, was not cut properly and was curling up around the bottom. On the back of the door, maintenance painted over a whole command strip hook---it was quite entertaining to discover that. I do want to clarify that these small "defects" don't really affect day-to-day life, though.
Picture 5: built in storage shelves
These shelves, hidden by a small door, were to the left of our bathroom. It was perfect for storing cleaning supplies, extra toilet paper, paper towels, etc. Definitely handy.
Pictures 6 and 18: the single room
It's only slightly smaller than the double, and provides ample room for someone who's going solo. Same closet layout as the double. While my roommate in this room chose to use a twin size bed, realistically you can fit a full size bed in that space next to the closet. This is like living in luxury compared to the double in terms of usable space.
Picture 7: the staircase
Carpeted stairs that creak like crazy. That's all.
Pictures 8 and 9: the fakeout closet
Yep, it's not a closet, just access to your water heater and furnace for maintenance. By the way, the furnace is pretty loud! You do have access to an thermostat though, and it's not in any way controlled by the school.
Picture 10: the living room
Probably the best part about this place. It's a reasonable size, with a linoleum square around the door that helps prevent your carpet from getting dirty. I suggest you put a couch/group seating against the long back wall (a three-person couch will fit!), and a skinny TV stand on the opposite wall. If you're looking at picture 10, then that'd have the TV stand on the left and the couch on the right. You won't have much room for anything else.
Picture 11: downstairs closet #1
Great for bulk storage/winter coats/etc.
Our sliding doors weren't attached at the bottom, so they were just floating from the top essentially. Nothing crazy here.
Picture 12: downstairs closet #2
This one, to the left of the previously shown closet, is a walk-in closet. It is directly underneath the staircase. This space holds your breaker box, so if you ever trip the breaker you can reset it right there. Although it gets shorter as a staircase descends in the back, there is more storage space that you can't see in picture 12 in the rear right of the closet. Overall, it's decently large space.
Pictures 13, 14, and 17: the kitchen
It's functional. Reasonable cupboard space for three people, cheap but effective appliances (fridge, electric oven, no dishwasher). You definitely have room for a small table and chairs in the corner, as we did. I believe our table was about 36x36 inches. Counter space is limited but not unworkable. We decided to put our microwave on top of the refrigerator, though this may not work for everyone---the average height between my roommates and I was about 6'4", and it's a full-size refrigerator. If you do put the microwave on top of the fridge, you will likely need something rubber to put underneath the feet of the microwave so it won't slide around. Otherwise, you could get a small rolling cart or shelf to put beside the cupboards near the entranceway.
And that's the tour! I'll move right along to some other things of note/suggestions:
- Most apartments don't have tree cover from the sun---especially ours---so it got brutally hot in the first couple weeks of the semester when it was still warm. They will not allow you to install your own air conditioner because of the non-standard windows. You must schedule an appointment with maintenance for them to install one for you, which costs well over $100. You must provide your own air conditioner as well. Could you install it yourself and get away with it? Yes. But, you would have to cut a piece of plywood or something to fill up the empty space above the air conditioner. My roommates and I just dealt with the heat, blasting fans all around the apartment. It quickly cooled down quickly enough, though, as Rochester does.
- Speaking of which, winter was interesting in our apartment. The upstairs was perpetually too hot, and the downstairs was perpetually too cold. There are no floor vents on the downstairs floor---the heat is only pumped out of ceiling vents. Since, of course, heat rises, the downstairs ceiling would be nice and warm, but everywhere else on the bottom floor was a more cold than ideal. This was made worse by the fact that our doors to the outside were very old and didn't seal properly. Upstairs, the vents are located in the floor. Since the thermostat is always overcompensating for how cold it was downstairs, it would get too hot upstairs. It was a ongoing battle with the thermostat, long story short. From what I understand though, this is not as big of an issue in other apartments.
- The walls don't block all the sound out from your neighbors. It wasn't a huge issue for us, but keep that in mind.
- If you're in the housing selection process, try to get an apartment as close to the laundry center as possible. You will get VERY tired of lugging your laundry far distances outside.
- When you're looking to purchase furniture for your unit, think about using more vertical space than horizontal---especially for the bedrooms. A tall and skinny dresser, for instance, will utilize your floor space much more effectively than a wide, sprawling dresser.
If I think of anything else, I will certainly update this post. I encourage anyone who's a current resident or previous resident to chime in and comment on anything I might have missed. Overall, living in Riverknoll was not an awful experience, and the closeness to academic side of campus is endlessly convenient. It has its downsides, but it's the cheapest available apartment on campus so it comes with the territory. Thank you for reading!
Edit for additional info: These are not year round apartments. You must move out after the end of Spring semester unless you pay thousands more to stay over the summer.