If you are in Montreal for a short period of time, and looking for temporary housing, I strongly recommend LaCité: you will fall in love with Montreal, but LaCité will ensure that you look forward to moving out of their apartment, and leaving Montreal will hurt a lot less.
The building is really old. Although I lived in a renovated unit (look for wooden floors), all the facilities were old (and the lease doesn't even come with a gym membership, even though there's a gym in the basement), elevators were frequently broken (leading to long waits or long walk up the stairs), and the sounds carried from adjoining units and from the streets.
But the worst of it all was the management's complete lack of my privacy. FYI, the management of the building changed some time in the past few years, so if you're reading old reviews, take them with a grain of salt. Here's my own experience (one of them) of my privacy at LaCité:
Some woman (named Narcissa, as I learned from her name tag a bit later, along with another man) knocked on my apartment door one evening. She did not identify herself as a staff member, and when asked who she was, she asked for a "little bit of my time." Believing her to be a door-to-door seller (best scenario) or some drug addict with a gun in her hand (worst scenario), I just ignored her knocks (ok, this is kind of rude, but when you're a young woman living by yourself, you gotta do what you gotta do to stay safe!) Although she knew that I was inside, she proceeded to open my door with her keys and came inside. Talk about feeling violated!
The lease states that you will be given a 24-hour notice before a staff entry, unless there's an emergency (like if something floods in your apartment). Not having given such a notice (and my toilet wasn't spewing out random stuff), I of course told her that she couldn't come in, but I still had to physically block her from entering my doorstep, and told her that I'll make a complaint to the management. She yelled, "Oh, please do!" and stormed away. The management made a half-assed apology via email, but who can't type sorry?
Let me add that this is not the first time an unauthorized entry happened: I once got a phone call from one of the maintenance people, saying something like "we're here to check your fire alarm. Do we have your permission to enter?" When I told him that I wasn't given a 24-hour notice and that I'd prefer being there when he enters my apartment, he went "Oh, but I'm already inside. That's not a big deal, right? *laughter*" When I got home that night, there was a huge boot print on my yoga mat that I keep unfolded in a corner. I couldn't get rid of it, so ended up throwing that out. I had complained about this incident, but nothing really happened. When I mentioned that a lot of online reviews mentioned this privacy issue, one of the managers (Vanessa) responded, "Oh, that's only 4 or 5 out of hundreds of tenants. That's pretty good, right?" Right.
Even when the 24-hour notice is given, they cut corners in every possible way. Instead of calling you or emailing you, they leave a piece of paper tucked in your doorframe. So if they do this in the evening (which they frequently do), you might not discover the notice until the morning when you leave your apartment, effectively giving you only 10-12 hours. Or, if you went home for three days for Thanksgiving? Oops! I guess you weren't there to receive our 24-hour notice, but we went in anyway. Even without that, they usually only give you 22 or 23 hours at most. By the way, Quebec is the only province in Canada where trespassing is not recognized as a crime (so you can't sue them or anything), and LaCité really takes advantage of it.
They also enter your apartment A LOT. While I lived there for a year, they entered my apartment maybe 10 times with my knowledge. Without my knowledge... who knows?! I definitely made sure not to leave any valuables lying around.
So, to sum up, I'd live elsewhere. That block in the McGill Ghetto has so many places for rent (many of them beautiful French-style buildings with Montreal's signature staircases), and LaCité is so expensive. It's not worth your money, and you're going to save a lot of headaches and angry sad feelings during your stay in Montreal by going elsewhere (did I mention that there's a steep hill from the metro stop to the apartment?). But if you happen to like random dudes bursting into your apartment at random hours, you might make a lot of friends... maybe! read more