Pros:
Location is great, close to L train - you can be at the first ave stop within 3 minutes. Bathroom is all tiled, easy to clean, has 2 windows. The kitchen has a dishwasher. You can pay rent online. There's a patio out back on the first floor. We only saw one dead roach a few weeks after moving in, management sent an exterminator within a week, we have not seen any other pests in the apartment during the remainder of our year living here which is great for a unit so close to the ground floor! When the stove broke and dishwasher broke, management replaced the appliances within a week or two.
Cons:
First, the building’s front entrance appears to be collapsing with the door frame cracked and bowing inward, making the door increasingly difficult to open. The apartment floor slopes inward towards the center and there is a bounce when you walk, it feels very unstable with loose floor boards. The hallways have chipped paint and are rarely cleaned, the trash bin in the hall smells horrible. The restaurant downstairs creates a lot of trash outside the front door every morning. There is a laundromat downstairs, with a dryer lint vent out back of the building, so windows facing the back become very dusty and full of lint so you are constantly cleaning! We had an issue with hot water a few months after moving in, it would stop working after around 7-8pm and remain cold until the morning. We were told the boiler supplied the hot water for the entire block of buildings (it is an old building this is a common setup). After 2 months of constant weekly emails complaining of this issue, we contacted upstairs and building next door neighbors who reported similar issue w/ hot water - management finally replaced the boiler and the issue has been better since then. It was very frustrating to take ice cold showers for two months during the winter when coming home from work at night. The heat is electric baseboard, so the bill is $200+ monthly in the winter and even with all heaters on the highest settings, the apartment is still very cold. There is no heater in the bathroom so the bathroom is freezing all winter, even with the door left open it does not warm up. The bedrooms face first avenue and there is tons of noise from the street, lots of folks walking around all night and yelling/playing music.
Advice to owner:
Listen to tenants when they raise issues, take better care of the common areas like hallways/stairs/patio. Increase the size of the refrigerator. Improve the heating situation especially in the bathroom.