There are numerous pros and cons of living here. I wish I could say there are no cons, or that the…read morenegatives are not worth being bothered by, but I can't. And it's a shame because I had wanted to live in Ninth Square for ages.
We moved into the 44 Orange St. building in the middle of January of this year (You'll see another review made by Dawn B., that's my mother).
Let's begin:
1. The literal moving in was a breeze. We had hired a great moving company, and Peter had made the George St. gate available to us so we could get the moving truck in. One of the two elevators in the lobby is larger and great for moving large furniture items.
2. The apartment has a lot of space. Good counter space in the kitchen, and the living room is quite large. We can fit three large turtle aquariums, a large terrarium, our kitchen table, a small freezer and two good sized arm chairs in the living room. Compared to where I've lived in the past, this is the first living room I've enjoyed hanging out in, in years.
3. Both bathrooms are a good size for what they are. The master bedroom (mine) has plenty of space for me, though my bathroom's layout is a bit weirdly shaped and my closet is small. Took a lot of reorganizing to get my closet to a point where it was working for me. I'm a creative person, and my bedroom can accommodate a few of my main hobbies. This is a dream for me because I've never had that much space before.
4. My mother's bedroom is much smaller in comparison but fits her lifestyle well enough, and the walk in closet she has is superb. I don't know what the thought process was when designing this apartment, but if my bedroom had a walk in closet my bathroom would be tiny and my room would have less space. So while her room may be smaller physically, it accommodates her better based on her lifestyle.
5. Storage is not the greatest. We have a hallway closet and a lot of stuff crammed in it. Things that cannot fit in the hallway closet, end up under our beds, in our bedroom closets, and on top of the large shelf in the laundry closet. We also have small bookshelves in the smaller of the two hallways, which we use to storage bath towels and bed sheets. They look great, and make the hallway interesting, but it means we don't have storage in any other part of the apartment for these things.
6. The washer and dryer were included with the apartment. This was a MASSIVE plus for us. Being able to do laundry in the apartment, something we've not been able to do for a very long time is phenomenal.
7. Peter, who handles leasing, is a great person and very professional. He has always treated us with respect and we enjoy talking to him whenever the opportunity arises. The young woman who works at the desk in the Crown St. office, her name escapes me, she is also very sweet and professional. She recognizes us right away when we come to retrieve packages or stop in for other reasons. Unfortunately, there are other people who work in the office, Breyone and Vesta, who are often rude, aloof and have the listening skills of socks. Conversing with them is a nightmare so we simply do not engage.
The maintenance crew are the nicest people though. Professional, thorough, and overall easy to work with. When they've come in to make repairs they enjoy taking a look at our aquariums, wall hangings, and so on. There's just something that feels genuinely good about a visitor coming in and complimenting my paintings, asking about our turtles, and recognizing my mom's poster of Winston Churchill then having a cool history discussion with her about him.
8. Sadly, a few days after we moved in, my mother woke up freezing in her bedroom and found frost on the INSIDE of her bedroom windows. She documented it of course. Contacted management. One of the maintenance guys tried to seal it, but that made little difference and the issue continued. After pleading with Vesta numerous times to get the problem fixed, and after multiple promises to fix it, it wasn't actually fixed. There were other windows throughout the apartment that were accumulating sludge between the panels. Aside from it looking gross, it's an obvious sign these windows are not weather-proof. There was wood rot on windowsills. For human health this is an issue of course, especially since my mother has a neuromuscular illness and that level of freezing temperatures is not safe for her. Regardless, no one should be forced to deal with that. Don't even get me started about my reptiles and fish which are dependent on warmer conditions to stay healthy and alive! Thankfully none of my aquatic pets have been affected, but the colder conditions definitely aggravated my older cat's arthritis.
In the end we brought Beacon to housing court. They were forced by the court to repair the windows. The repairs are excellent. It shouldn't have come to that though. Beacon's refusal to make repairs by ignoring us, ignoring LCI, is just atrocious and has left a bad taste in our mouths.
