Pros:
The super and his staff are friendly, helpful and responsive. The building is pretty safe and convenient. People are friendly and say “hi” and “goodnight” on the elevator. The doormen are nice -and except for one-not calculating busybodies. When we shovel snow in the parking lot after a winter storm, sometimes parking spot neighbors try to help one another out.
Some longtime residents like myself really, really love living here and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. And, despite its flaws, decide to stay year after year. We love the building and it’s wonderful qualities and we love the staff. I am sure I am not the only one who wants to keep it nice and good and make it better. Residents that love it as much as I do, try to go our part.
Cons:
The building is getting run down. The doors to the stairways bang closed, the mechanism that attaches to doors to close them slowly are never fixed. Door knobs to the trash chute frequently fall off. There are dried puddles on the stairway landings that are not cleaned. The floors in the hallways and garbage room are no longer cleaned with bleach. The garbage room where the trash chute is often has roaches that come into apartments. Roach sightings are more and more frequent. The previous rental agent retired a few years ago. Since then, the crowd has been getting rougher and tougher. I had some of my laundry stolen from the washer in the laundry room.
The rent keeps going up and up every year while the quality of the place goes down.
Advice to owner:
Have staff use bleach to throughly clean the garbage rooms and hallways. Mostly, begin screening prospective tenants better again. There was an article about senior citizens not being allowed to rent here awhile ago. That is a shame because they are not the ones partying and blasting their music, being loud and inconsiderate, screaming and fighting at night, and smoking pot and other things.
Also, if water or heat is going to be shut off for servicing, tenants should get advanced notice. At the bare minimum, signs should be posted in three places: at the elevator in the lobby, at the elevator in the mezzanine, and on the door leading to and from the parking lot. Ideally, tenants should be on a group text service or email alerting us of these changes so we can plan accordingly (ex: if we know the water will be off, we can shower somewhere else before coming).