I recently sent a friend some advice on apartment hunting in Mountain View, shortly after completing my second housing search here. First things first: it's not cheap. As of this writing, a decent 1br in this area will run $1500-$2000/mo, and a 2br will go for $2000-$2500. It's a bit more expensive in nearby Palo Alto, and a helluva lot worse in San Francisco!
A lot of high-density apartment housing developed in Mountain View in the 60's and 70's, presumably during the initial rise of Silicon Valley. As a result, most of the stock is of that vintage. They get renovated from time to time of course, but this only helps so much. Some warning signs to look for in an apparently nice unit: ungrounded (two-prong) electrical outlets, gravity wall heaters that make a lot of noise warming up and cooling down, lack of kitchen exhaust fan, several layered coats of paint (usually detectable around doorjambs and windowsills), superficial bathroom renovations involving acrylic slapped on the existing tile and tub, adjacency to noise sources such as Caltrain/Central Expwy and freeways (101/85).
