Poor management ruins the building
Pros
The location is great with not too much street noise and friendly neighbors. Our ground floor apartment was spacious and had a very large private yard that was great for summers.
Cons
Over 3 years in the apartment, we’ve seen a consistent pattern of lack of investment to fix underlying and recurring issues with the building. We have had infestations of mice and roaches never properly addressed. An exterminator is sent monthly, but the issue never resolved and we continue to see mice and find at least one roach every day. Also, the heat continuously breaks every few weeks through the winter. Again, maintenance is sent to fix it, but these are all band-aid solutions and the system continues to fail. Similarly, we’ve had recurring leaks from the kitchen ceiling for a year and each time there is a one-off patch but a new leak inevitably comes up a few weeks later.
Advice to the owners
E&M management are relatively good at sending out contractors to address immediate issues, but do a poor job communicating with tenants. And the building’s owner does not invest in actually fixing underlying issues (e.g. the leak in our ceiling was patched vs. the broken sewage pipes being replaced and will break again in the future) so tenants are left spending an inordinate amount of their time dealing with issues. It’s a shame to see a building in such a nice area decline due to under investment. We ultimately decided to move out rather than spend another year dealing with continuous issues.