Pros and cons
Pros
Price is amazing. Neighbors are lovely people. Building is cleaned everyday
Cons
The units are quite small. The building is well-run to a certain point -- the elevator has gone down for a week at a time, which has been a problem for disabled tenants on upper floors. Pest control is a problem. There are amenities (gym, laundry, roof) but they're all a bit dingy
Understaffed, Roaches & Unresponsive Management
Pros
The neighbors are great. There's a building group chat which is really useful for getting to know your neighbors and talk about any building issues, trade items etc. The area is also lovely, lots of coffee shops, access to prospect park, great food and restaurants.
Cons
There's no live-in super. Upon moving in we discovered there was a roach problem. Thankfully we had the resources to purchase insecticide and other products to be able to get rid of the problem ourselves but we still see at least one roach every few months due to the larger infestation in the building. Every couple of months the laundry room floods for some reason. The trash room has all trash chutes closed meaning the man who essentially functions as the super has to come into the building twice a week and haul the garbage from each floor down to the front of the building. He does not get paid enough for this service that he's providing and the management does not see fit to open the trash chutes. Management is largely unavailable on weekends. This is an issue because recently on a Friday, due to the below freezing temps, the garage door froze open and left the building open to anyone, resulting in our mail room getting broken into and many packages stolen. None of us were reimbursed for this lack of attention to detail and lack of security nor was anyone available to address the issue until Monday. There is also a water quality issue in this building. My partner and I were experiencing skin issues for the first couple of months moving here until we realized when we left for the weekend and spent time in someone else's home, our skin would clear up. We decided to change the faucet and get a water filter and lo and behold, our skin cleared up and stopped having issues. I think the drinking water is fine? But I wouldn't chance it.
Advice to the owners
Hire someone who is available to work on the weekends to address the issues that inevitably will come up on weekends. Your tenants do not only exist from Monday - Thursday. The hired exterminator is nice and all, but you have a fundamental issue, the roaches are literally in the walls and the floorboards and baseboards have way too much space in between them which allows for pests to travel between units.
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