The Garden Group Management Inc.

Clean, no issues with rodents, bugs, or neighbors

The corner of the street can feel shady

It was a really nice unit and lots of space and beautiful views

It’s so loud next to the train and on a really dirty gross street

Great location and neighborhood

The old owner sold the building and the new one jacked up the price by $800!!!

I don’t have any advice

I have lived in 298 Schaefer for three years. When we first moved in we were drawn to the big windows, somewhat livable space compared to what we had before, ok sized rooms, modern appliances and fixtures in the kitchen and bathroom. The brick wall seemed quaint, and there's a roof and fire escape access. It was a good deal at the time. We ended up befriending a lot of our neighbors and building community. They keep the hallways clean. There was a lot to love about this place and it does hold a special place in my heart.

The first thing we noticed upon moving in immediately was how thin the walls are. You will hear EVERYTHING. Be besties with your roommates or you will be miserable. There is no privacy here. You will even hear your downstairs neighbors talking. They also play loud music a lot and it's hard to sleep. There is a dog in the backyard that cries all night. You will never wake up in the morning on your own accord, something WILL wake you up. Every. Single. Day.

The next thing we noticed was mold in the ac. There were some broken cabinets, faulty outlets, holes in the foundation cracks on the walls and peeling in the bathroom and living room ceilings. They did not paint our rooms from the previous tenants or seem to have done any repair or cleaning moving in. The ceiling fan in the bathroom was broken. Lightbulbs were out. But nothing seriously terrible.

The super came and addressed minor repairs. If you submit a ticket for something small, even if they ignore you at first if you keep reaching out they will typically respond quickly and fix it (missing cabinets, broken handles, caulking issues.

However, they only offer band-aid approaches. They ignored our concerns about the AC units. When we had a mouse infestation, we had to have an exterminator come back 4 times. In between his visits a mouse died in the living room and another in my bedroom next to my bed. We saw a mouse 2 and a half years later and realized the original problem had never been fixed.

We see roaches occasionally, usually just in the hallway and roof, but SO MANY bugs of all kinds come through the cracks in the foundations on the windows and brick. Ants infested next to my bed all summer last year, I'm constantly killing bugs and it makes me feel like my bed is dirty, paranoid about things crawling on me all the time. Sometimes there is a homeless man who sleeps on the roof, do not interact with him. Roof is infested with bees flies and so many lantern flies, they will terrorize you. There is an exterminator but he is inadequate and hard to get to show up. They also added a bunch of crazy clauses to the lease that basically allow them to evade any responsibility for basically anything a landlord / management should take care of. They do not always deal with trash and they have gotten fines before they try to push on tenants.

The real problems came in Fall of 2024. There is a lot of structural damages that they don't want to / can't afford to take responsibility of. There is a lot of water damage throughout the apartment. Our friends in 1B started to experience a nightmare mold situation in fall of 2024. They had severe toxic mold and it was infiltrating all of their belongings. It got on their clothes, their furniture, their sheets, their beds. Slugs were coming inside the apartment?! I went to their house one time and it was straight up a horror movie. It was affecting their health physically and mentally. They attempted to withhold rent to negotiate remediation and management forced them to move out. The day after they were evicted management started showing the apartment to new people. Someone moved in there the end of that month. We started experiencing problems on the top floor after that. My hairdressers assistant's boyfriend (so random) used to live in the floor below me and she said he was getting mold on his stuff and had to move out. He played music and it even got in his amp?!

People on the second floor were getting it on their clothes. I started to notice it on my clothes too. There was a spot in the living room and the bathroom that had water damage and looked worse every month. It started getting on everything. It's still on the bathroom door. It got on my mattress which was such a dark moment for me. It made me feel so unsafe.

Jonathan from management literally is the worst. He made my life hell. He would scream at me on the phone, gaslight me, ignored me for months at a time. We had to threaten withholding rent and starting a tenant union to get them to address the problem in the living room. Management conducted theft of services on the hardworking men who helped us. We had to get all of our belongings personally cleaned, and fought them to reimburse us for it. They cleaned out the ACs but did not fix the problem so they still smell like mold. Mine rattles a lot and it's really irritating. If you decide to live here. You are taking a gamble. There were problems in the bathroom they painted over and didn't fix. There is the beginning of water damage in the kitchen. Water pools and gets in from the roof in all corners of the apartment. If it holds up during your time here, it will be okay. But if anything goes wrong you are totally fucked. It's up to you if you want to take that risk, but if you've ever dealt with anything like this before and it scarred you like it did to me, i would suggest you run. 🏃

Cute space, love the roof, love the neighborhood

Would duel management if I could, either out of malice or incompetence made our lives incredibly difficult through piss poor mold management that never got fixed and still continues to be an issue, pests, and lease issues (and included insanely illegal clauses in leases we were made to agree to at the 11th hour)

It is a nice, peaceful neighborhood with less noise than other streets. The building is clean.

Expensive utility, commute (Q train suddenly changes their schedules sometimes.)

Heating is expensive.

Clean, friendly neighbors, pretty quiet, nice view

noise from the street in the summer

Good amenities, quiet street

Management was slow to respond to issues

Be more on top of issues

Renovated, large, close to L

Terrible management, consistently ignored us while mold grew in our apartment due to water in the walls

Though the building is small - I am not bothered by my neighbors except for one incident. It is close to transportation and on a quiet block.

The common areas are not well maintained at all. Laundry is in the basement of the building but the room and machines are in constant disarray. There was also the one incident I mentioned earlier that resembled a dv argument and police did show up but was not notified by building management or anyone that an incident occurred.

Stop promoting the gym/laundry room if you are not going to keep it up to par. They do not look maintained.

Apartments look nice, before they start aging.

The whole building has been made as cheaply as possible. The landlords will go out of their way to spend as little as humanly possible on fixing issues and maintenance, but at the same time will charge you way too much for rent. Most of our neighbors have reported a 20%-30% increase each year around renewal. The building floods, has no heating and the landlords do NOTHING. They do not care about anything besides money and they make it known to their tenants (once the lease is signed).

The building is clean and relatively new, though the units do not have any windows in the kitchen/common area and the rooms are quite small. The building is a walk-up which makes living on upper floors difficult. A bit if a walk to the subway as well.

Garden Management is very unprofessional and placed my roommates and I in an unsafe situation, forcing us to live with a roommate who broke into our apartment in the middle of the night.

Close to the L train

Our unit flooded TWICE, people inject drugs and smoke crack outside all day (there is active drug dealing on the block), construction next door caused many issues and is extremely loud, not worth living here

laundry in-unit, closets in every room, personal A/C and heating units for all rooms

absolutely no airflow in the kitchen/living room - no window (no light), small kitchen appliances (fridge, stove), practically no kitchen cabinets/storage, paper thin walls (you can hear the literal words coming out of your roommate's conversations)

Insulate your walls so people don't hear their neighbor's conversations

The building is brand new, their is a gym and doorstop access.

We’ve lived here for about 4 years and love our apartment.

Management is really terrible at communication, especially when it comes to maintenance. Almost taking days or weeks to respond. Sometimes they don’t respond at all.

When they do hire maintenance they are always the worst types of people. We had an exterminator come by and he did nothing at all.

The owner needs to put in the effort to provide qaulity service to their tenenats.

clean, no pests, quiet street,

management is unhelpful and unresponsive until you are really pushy,

Location was convenient. I liked having a dishwasher.

1) This building was built in what, 2015? Common walls are falling apart by the plaster chunk. The door is frequently broken. The elevator breaks all the time. I have literally been trapped inside it. When it rains, water seeps through exterior walls into the apartment. Absolutely no flood control measures in the basement. 2) Beyond negligent. Not the super’s fault—he doesn’t get materials, support, or information from management. They don’t respond to service requests in a remotely timely manner. They do a bad job addressing issues. EG, plastering over a wall so waterlogged it was spongey. My smoke alarms were broken for MONTHS. 3) Trash rooms are tiny and constantly overflowing. Housekeeping staff uses the same elevator as you, so it always smells like wet trash. 4) Washing machines are constantly broken. Also tiny and overpriced! 5) Walls might as well be made of paper. Get ready for 24/7 baby screaming. 6) It’s just not safe. The stairways are narrow with almost nonexistent landings. The front steps are so slick when they get even a little bit wet that someone is going to break a bone someday. 7) I hope you like the cold! When the wind blows it will come through your balcony door into your home. 8) Speaking of which, it’s so cold in winter you can literally see your breath. 9) The roof is nice! No furniture though. Unfortunately it’s frequently covered in trash. No one cleans it. 10) All this, and they still demanded $700 more a month when lease renewal time came. And proceeded to try and keep half my security deposit for issues they themselves caused or literally invented. Unparalleled. Run.

Get a real job :)

The building WAS clean & very well maintained about 2 years ago. The apartment layouts are modern & cute.

A handyman DOES NOT live on premiss & the building is constantly DIRTY. The main door often brakes & goes weeks w/out repair & people often walk-in off the street & steal packages. The front outside of the building has NEVER been maintained, there's overgrown grass & litter everywhere under the stairs & ramp. The hallway floors (other than the main lobby) & stairs cases don't get swept or mopped for weeks at a time. The laundry room is FILTHY, the washer/dryer machines have never been cleaned, visibly broken & barely repaired. Visible mold & mold smell in the basement. There are unfinished construction projects material visible everywhere. The elevator is always filthy & smelly & isn't wiped clean ever.

The property is falling apart, filthy, unclean, moldy, smell & looks like management DOESN'T care about tenants or the upholding of the building.

Relatively clean and quiet. Renovated and well maintained.

Elevator often has issues, 1/3 washers breaks often and there is no where to fold your laundry, sometimes takes a while to get management to fix things

Change door code regularly (there have at times been issues with package theft).

Location, new and clean with no pest/bug issues, gym usually empty, reasonable and flexible management, heating and cooling units in all rooms

Management sometimes slow to respond, package theft, elevator issues and challenges at move in

Please be clear on who to contact after hours and help tenants when their items are stolen off of their mailboxes.