Botanical House at 921 Washington Avenue,

Brooklyn, NY 11225

Nice, new finishes. Quiet and safe. Overall a good experience.

Hiked up rent by 7% in 1 year. Way too much for what was offered.

- Fantastic location, right across from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
- The units I lived in were both beautifully remodeled.
- Washer/dryer in unit
- Balcony in one of the units I lived in was lovely!

- Super was very unresponsive. My roommates and I had many issues with leaks in the ceiling that were never resolved, even after submitting multiple requests and reaching out directly to the building's management company.
- The first unit I lived in was on the ground floor and we had an issue with cockroaches for about 3 months. That was eventually resolved, however I would occasionally see dead roaches in communal areas.
- The building controlled the heat in the winter and it was always incredibly hot.

Please hire a new super or additional help. Be more responsive and receptive to tenant emails and phone calls.

No fuss building with clean public spaces

Mail gets stollen a lot

Get a different key pad system

The view of the botanic garden is very lovely. The exposed brick is very nice.

The super is quite unresponsive. For example, our bathroom had no power for nearly 2 months. It took many calls before the super finally brought in an electrician to fix.

Get a better super.

the building looks gorgeous

the luxury aspects are impractical. the apartments are cut up into tiny spaces. in a four bedroom unit the bedrooms are so tiny and the common areas so narrow you will lose your mind living with three other roommates. the rent you pay is far too high for such a cramped space. also, if you're working from home beware that the internet goes out *all *the *time. Optimum and Verizon both say it's an issue with the building.

the rent is far too high.

Very pretty, close to a deli and Food town groceries, across from the botanical garden

Packages get stolen, property management took 6 months to replace something they said they would replace the next week.

Great area on a relatively quiet street right across from the Botanical gardens. Recently renovated units with good space. Pet friendly and friendly building management.

Management can be slow to address problems. Some pests around pipes and garbage areas

Generally the building is ok clean and dog friendly. The units have been recently redone so have all the amenities.

The super never responds, even when locked out. The amenities are nice but we’re done poorly so are already falling apart. There’s definitely bug problems. The building has all kinds of weed and cigarette smells. The street is very quiet which is good, but that means that it can become quite unsafe. There is ALWAYS poop and trash in front of the building steps. For the price point (high) I would recommend not living here.

Attractive. Had a lot of charm.

Management is terrible. Apartments are cheaply finished.

Fix your apts!!! Respond to your tenants!

Great neighborhood, lovely neighbors, laundry room downstairs. Rent is too high otherwise I would have stayed.

Occasional cockroach and mice problem.

I got priced out otherwise I would have stayed

Neighborhood is friendly with older families and lots of dogs, mostly housing and not restaurants for extra noise and pest.
Near the park -so there are nice breezes, lovely sunsets, full moons and some shooting stars seen right from the window.
Apartment "renovation" has a better layout and fixtures than most reno'd units in Brooklyn.

2 years of constant construction at irregular hours and 7 days a week with no respect to tenants. No proper containment of dust and debris, water issues.

Refused to take any action/responsibility for the mass of packages being stolen from tenants even after being told that the door code was being given to every person that came to see empty units.

Botanic Garden event space is pretty loud at night usually till midnight.
Owners crammed two new units into our former lobby and besides it looking super ugly and dark - they didn't take care to clean up the lobby once they finished. Historical design elements were treated terribly, light fixtures broken and still not replaced after a year, and the end result is very tacky and diminishes the appeal of the property despite adding units.
All new units have bedrooms that are too small for anything but sleeping but cost near the price of a similar sized studio.
Repairs take weeks-months to address and usually still aren't fixed.
The "gut-renos" we're not finished with the quality expected of the price, smeared grout on the bathroom floors and literal nails sticking out of walls in random places.

Get a new management company - they are very rude, incompetent and not managing your money well. One neighbor sends checks and he's been getting notices for the past year and a half from the bank that the checks haven't been cashed or returned.
The people who handle leases only want to text and refuse to email any information which is not a professional way to conduct business.
And maybe don't be shady about the pricing - you push insane rent increases on tenants who are willing to stay but then advertising available units for "months-free deals" and cheaper rent. It's forcing all the nice neighbors to move and barely anyone moving in. The unit next to me has been empty for 5 months already because of the ridiculous rent.

Lovely location right across from the botanical gardens, nicely refinished large apartment

Right after we moved in they told us they had to re-wire our apartment because apparently the electrical wiring had been done wrong the first time. After coming in multiple times for many hours to make all the changes, they failed to patch up massive holes they had left in the kitchen wall behind our sink and stove, which allowed a stream of roaches and mice to infest our apartment. Also, huge problem with package theft!!

Fix the holes before renting our unit to another person!

Beautiful lobby, really nice spacious apartments, elevator, laundry in unit, nice floors, balcony, pretty views of trees in the back, birds chirping in the morning and pretty quiet.

Roach problem that will never go away unless they fully get a handle on the whole building. Packages are stolen all the time, I had to stop sending things to my address. Very drafty windows. They tried to jump our rent from $2700 to $4400 the next year because they said we had the COVID discount (which was not specified when we came here). Super leaves you on read all the time. Apartment complex in the back has vacancies that have their lights on 24/7, so lots of light pollution (hasn't changed for over a year).

Fix the ROACHES. Get a lock for the first entry door.

Great access to transportation

THE ROACHES!!!!!!! So bad

pay your con ed bill

Beautiful unit, no issues with sound, great appliances. Nice details and spacious closets.

Tons of construction noise and sometimes unsafe construction in building. Packages often stolen out of lobby. Tons of roaches. Gorgeous art deco lobby was turned into apartments while we lived there. Promises of roof deck and gym in building never happened. People would throw trash and construction debris on our porch. Super not responsive but management was.

Get rid of the roaches and stop destroying the building’s historic features.

Good location next to garden

Owner never resolved major maintenance issues.

Beautifully designed apartment. Love the herringbone wood floors and marble in the bathroom.

We’ve been dealing with a roach problem since we moved in a few months ago. They mostly range from tiny to medium sized roaches, although once we had a huge one. We’ve killed over 10 in the few days since we got back from a trip. I’m really hoping the exterminator helps with this problem. None of the traps and other measures we’ve taken have helped.

The rooms are extremely small. I haven’t been able to find a queen sized bed frame that works in the bedroom yet.

There’s an issue with a thief stealing packages on a regular basis. I’ve already lost 2 packages due to this, and management has been unwilling to offer any remedy or help for this.

The other sad realization I had after move in is that the beautiful kitchen doesn’t have a fan, which isn’t functional at all for someone who likes to actually use the kitchen and not just look at it. Instead we’re breathing in cooking fumes everytime we cook. Huge oversight.

Set up a mailroom that locks.

The unit itself is really nice after being renovated: appliances all work well, the closets are all good sizes, the wood floors are nice, etc. Any time something wasn’t working, the super was very responsive (there’s an app to submit requests) and fixed things on the spot. The garbage and recycling are taken care of more than our previous apartment buildings. The location is great, the deli across the street is great, mostly everything is great.

I should also say that during the pandemic, everything has been safe and clean.

There are a lot, but these are the main ones:

Before we moved in, pre-pandemic, we paid a $500 fee that was no longer applicable to us and asked for a refund (we asked before we moved in). We got no response for months until I contacted everyone that worked for the building management - it shouldn’t have to be that way.

The roach problem was really bad during the spring/summer. They were coming in from the pipes. Management sent an exterminator as soon as we requested one but that didn’t help much. Just a bunch of roach motels placed all around the apartment.

There is an overly sensitive smoke detector directly above the kitchen burners/oven. If you try and fry anything or raise the oven temperature too high, the alarm will go off. Same thing happens in the apartments next to us. Have to open the windows in order to cook.

The intercom system is wired incorrectly and our unit buzzes whenever someone buzzes another unit, we don’t know which one.

This is the main one - We thought that there was loud construction going on directly above us. It’d go on all day and night and we contacted the management; they said they’d say something about it to the workers, to not work at night. This was at the beginning of the pandemic so we weren’t going to go to anyone’s door. Then it started getting louder and later, and we complained again. Management said that there was no construction above us and that someone lives there (did they lie before?), so I went up to see - It’s just a guy. Cops said he was redoing the floor - he doesn’t own the unit! We’ve continued to complain to management (I even had to say I wouldn’t pay rent until we heard something from the landlord) but they say they can’t do anything and are collecting info to evict him. However, seeing now on this app that no one has ever been evicted from this apartment building, I doubt that they’re actively doing anything. After a year and a half of constant noise and no support, we’re moving out.

Renter beware: ask if the unit above you has been renovated or not. If not, it’ll be loud and, if you move into this particular unit, you might get an upstairs neighbor that is intentionally loud, almost to the point of harassment with no support from the landlord.

You’ve set the price pretty high for these newly renovated apartments but now you’re going to lose money when it goes back on the market during a pandemic. Take care of the nuisances before setting prices that high because this apartment is not/hasn’t been worth it.